The Martial Artist and the Great Detective
by Cloud Dancer1014
Summary: After being knocked out of Nerima via Fiance Airlines, Ranma finds himself in the middle of a Black Organization shakedown. When he comes to, he finds himself trapped in the body of a seven year old girl, and in even more trouble than he could imagine...
1. Chapter 1

Greetings from the ever elusive Cloud Dancer1014. As you can see, I have finally posted my first story, and I hope that you all enjoy it. For those of you who A) don't like it and feel like insulting it, and/or B) consider crossovers to be uncreative, remember, each and every flame I get will be used to reheat my food and heat my dorm room (in the winter). If you have any problems with anything plot or grammar-wise, feel free to contact me, and I'll try to correct it.

Just for the record, I am a college student. Which means the only things I own right now are my textbooks, a laptop, and a few other trinkets and computer accessories. If I owned Ranma or Detective Conan (otherwise known as Case Closed), I would own a hell of a lot more than that, don't you think?

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The sun was setting over Nerima. Families were sitting down to eat dinner, the local wildlife was getting ready for the coming dark, and high in the sky, a young, pig-tailed youth by the name of Saotome Ranma was soaring out of the ward.

The day had started normally . . . at least, by Nerima standards. Ranma had woken up in the koi pond, after being thrown in by his (or her, as she was in female form at the time) father. After beating on the stupid panda, Ranma had eaten breakfast at his usual pace (insanely fast), and had left for school with his 'uncute' fiancé, Tendo Akane. The annoyance known as Kuno Tatewaki was sent into orbit, and then Ranma slept through school, complete with a tension filled lunch where Akane, his 'cute' fiancé Kuonji Ukyo, and his so-called Amazon wife Shampoo got into a minor fight, which ended when Mousse, a Chinese suitor of Shampoo's, tried to achieve his revenge on our aqua-transsexual hero.

Mind you, he ended up tying Shampoo up in those chains of his, but hey, Ranma really couldn't complain. After all, it got him out of trouble without having to interfere with the potential brawl.

However, it was when school ended that the trouble began . . .

Hibiki Ryouga, the eternally lost boy, had wandered back into town, and he ended up attacking Ranma again. The match lasted for about an hour, and totaled most of the street. Ranma could have ended it sooner, but Ryouga, as per usual, didn't notice that there were civilians in the area, which meant that Ranma had to spend time distracting the fool long enough for everyone to get out of the way. Which meant that when he finally wandered back to the Tendo dojo, he was completely unaware that Akane had tried her hand at cooking again!

This didn't mean that the other fiancés were unaware.

When Ranma finally made it back home, he was met with all three girls up at arms about whose dinner he was going to eat. Shampoo had a take-out box full of Ramen, while Ukyo had several okonomiyakis ready for the pigtailed martial artist.

Akane's dinner, on the other hand, was crawling away again, as nobody was around to watch it.

Honestly, nobody in Nerima knew why Akane had this problem, as both her sister, Kasumi, and her mother, Kami rest her soul, were excellent cooks. Kasumi had tried to teach her, but all that did was help her to make a half-decent curry. At least, Ranma thought it was halfway decent. Everyone else thought it was too spicy. Maybe it was the fact that she added too much habanera pepper to the mix . . .

Since Akane's other sister and the unofficial breadwinner of the Tendo family, Nabiki, had been getting on his case about the amount of damage that had been caused to the house (much less how much money that wedding had cost them . . . as if she hadn't already had that covered before the wedding began), Ranma decided to try and stop the fight before anything else could be destroyed.

Big mistake . . .

As Ranma leapt in, Ukyo drew her giant spatula, Shampoo was hefting her bonbouris, and Akane had materialized her mallet. As he got closer, they all swung . . .

And that's what lead to our current scene: Saotome Ranma flying off into the distant horizon, faster than he had ever flown before, leaving three stunned fiancés, a sighing Nabiki, and a blinking Kasumi behind in the yard.

Most of the local martial artists would be terrified out of their minds if they were in his situation. However, Ranma was not just any martial artist, and he's had plenty of practice with aerial maneuvers. As he reached the peak of his flight, Ranma flattened himself out, so that he could catch as much air resistance on the way down.

The landing was still going to hurt, but at least he'd be able to land without breaking anything important . . . hopefully.

Ranma looked ahead, in the hopes of maybe recognizing where he was going . . .

He didn't.

_Damn, what did I expect? Akane can get me into the next ward with one hit, all three of them would have knocked me . . . oh, please Kami, tell me that I'm still in Tokyo!_, the young martial artist thought.

As he got closer to the ground, Ranma looked anxiously for a clear spot to land. For the first time in the last two years, he couldn't find any bodies of water in his flight path. There was a park a bit further ahead, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to make it that far. Spying a nearby alley that looked long enough for a rolling landing, Ranma adjusted accordingly, braced himself, and . . .

"Ooomph!"

The martial artist extraordinaire of Nerima managed to skid onto the hard concrete, rolling across the alley and into a couple of crates of rice that were left up against a wall. Ranma laid there for a few minutes, until all the pretty stars vanished from his eyes, and then sat up, wincing as he did so.

_Let's see . . . both my legs are OK . . . I think I might have broken a few ribs, but it doesn't feel like I have any internal damage . . . my right arm is out of its socket but . . ._

"Hissssss!". Ranma exhaled heavily as he pushed his arm back in place.

_That can easily be fixed . . . still hurts like hell though . . . and I can still move, so there hasn't been any major damage done to my back . . . yeah, I'm good . . . _

Having taken care of the post fight damage, Ranma looked around, hoping to find something or someone who could tell him where he had landed. He then got up and started walking out of the alley, and into another, interconnected one.

_Looks like a landed in some kind of maze, _he thought. Then he snorted. _Heh, I'm just glad I don't have Ryouga's sense of direction . . ._

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Thousands of miles away, in the Amazon rain forest, a small black piglet sneezed, before squealing out something that, if anyone was around who could understand pigs, would translate into 'Damn you Saotome Ranma, this is all your fault!' He then continued running, as a pack of local predators followed.

Later on, authorities in Paris would wonder how exactly a Jaguar managed to appear in the middle of the Downtown shopping area. As Animal Control carried the tranquilized beast away, one young girl told an officer that she happened to see the beast chasing a small black piglet wearing a yellow bandanna before crashing into a brick wall. As the child was only seven years old, the officer didn't pay much attention to it.

Poor jaguar . . . if only it wasn't that close to catching P-chan . . .

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Ranma sneezed, and then shook his head. _Nah, better focus on where I am, and how I'm going to get back to Nerima . . . _

Suddenly, he heard something . . . voices . . . coming from the right. Ranma tensed, as his danger senses started to heighten. Cautiously, the young martial artist tiptoed over to the corner of the alley.

Peaking around, he saw an old man, wearing a three-piece suit, talking to a short, stocky looking guy dressed in black. The old man looked nervous, which might have had something to do with his companion.

" I'll have the money in a week! Just please be patient . . .

"Sorry, but the boss wants the money now, and he doesn't care whether it comes from your pocket or your insurance plan!", the overweight thug barked.

Ranma suppressed the urge to growl. He never liked seeing other people being pushed around, and he wasn't going to stand for it now.

Had Ranma been at is full capacity, things might have happened differently. As it was, Ranma had used up most of his ki trying to brace for his landing, and what was left was more or less focused on keeping the swelling down from all the bruises his landing had left him.

One moment, he was getting ready to launch a fierce haymaker at the man in black, then suddenly he felt a presence behind him, right before a heavy blow landed on the back of his head, knocking him out.

The two men in the alley turned, to find a tall man with blond hair, and a black outfit standing over a young man with black hair that was done up in a pig-tail. His black and red Chinese style clothing tattered, as if he had gone through a rough fight.

"You idiot!", the blond hissed, "What did I tell you about keeping an eye out for eavesdroppers!"

The fat man had the decency to look embarrassed. "I was keeping an eye out . . . he must be a spy or something . . ."

The blond rolled his eyes, and then looked over at the old man. "Have the money ready in a week. We'll be by then to pick it up."

The old man shrunk down in relief, bowed, and then high-tailed it out of there. Meanwhile, the blond man pulled a vial from his pocket. His partner raised an eyebrow at this.

"Gin, maybe we should just stick a bullet in his head. Nobody has been able to find that Kudo kid's body, and there are rumors out there that he's still alive . . . "

"Don't be ridiculous Vodka! Some scavenger probably found the body, and got rid of it for us. Besides, we haven't had any other problems with this stuff, so why worry?"

The man gently lifted the pig-tailed martial artist's chin up, and drained the vial into his mouth, making sure that it all went down. Then, he dropped him, and stepped away.

"Come on, let's get the hell out of here", he said, and both he and his partner vanished into the night.

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Ranma awoke to find his head throbbing, and the rest of his body feeling like he was on fire. Everything burned and itched, and he could feel his ki being poisoned by something foul. He struggled to fight it off, and then managed to get up on his feet.

Looking around, he realized that the two men that he had spied had vanished, along with whoever had snuck up and knocked him out.

Suddenly, he felt a wave of sudden painful throb, and nearly lost his footing. _What the hell did they do to me? I gotta get outta here! _

Slowly, painfully, he stumbled out of the alley, looking for a way out . . .

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Out on the street walked two small children who looked to be about seven years of age. One was a young boy, with black hair and glasses, wearing what looked to be a blue jacket, a white shirt, a bow tie, and a pair of shorts. Next to him walked a young girl with blond hair, wearing a stylish back outfit with a brown jacket over it. She had in one hand an umbrella.

The sky was dark and cloudy, and it looked like it was threatening to rain. Both children were making an effort to get home, and it looked like they were about to make it . . . until the boy stopped and turned towards a dark alley.

If this were any other kid, and any other location, this would probably end with a missing child report. However, this kid wasn't really a kid at all . . .

He was Edogawa Conan, aka Kudo Shinichi, a high school detective who had been turned into a child through the use of a special poison. His partner, Haibara Ai, was a scientist by the name of Miyano Shiho, who had used the same formula to escape from the Black Organization.

Ai, having just noticed that Conan wasn't following her, turned around to find the boy staring into the alley. But before she could say anything, a tall, black haired boy stumbled out, one hand gripping his side, the other clutched into a fist on his chest. The youth looked about sixteen years old, and his hair was tied into a pig tail in the back. He wore black pants and a red Chinese styled shirt, and he looked to be in extreme pain.

Shaking out of his shock, Conan rushed over to the man, and tried to figure out what was wrong. His clothing was ripped and tattered, but it didn't look like there was any blood on him. He turned around to tell Ai to call for help, when it started to rain.

Ai, on the other hand, already had her phone out at this point. However, the rain started before she could finish dialing, and as she looked up, she froze in shock, as everything she knew about science turned on its head!

Conan had noticed this, so he turned around as well . . . and nearly freaked out! Instead of the black haired youth that was staggering in pain, there was a young, red-headed girl. However, that wasn't the only thing that caused his shock. If it wasn't for the fact that the girl was short, had red hair, and a well developed chest, she would have sworn that the girl here and the guy before were the same person! They had the same hair style, same tattered clothing, heck, even their faces were similar!

All this took seconds for Conan's expert mind to categorize. Then, without warning, the girl froze, and then let out a loud, almost primeval shriek.

The two children jumped back in shock, and Ai immediately dropped her phone. As she scrambled to pick it up, she wondered what she should do. Unlike Conan, she had seen the change, and knew that both were indeed the same. She had a bit of experience with strange poisons, and was currently wondering whether something similar to what turned them into kids could have done this.

_But that's ridiculous! How could anything cause someone to change genders? I mean, shrinking, sure, but . . ._ She grabbed her phone, stood back up, and froze again. Conan was still staring at the girl, who was . . .

Shrinking.

Not just shrinking either. The girl's face was becoming younger and more child-like, and her breasts were shrinking to the point where she had become flat chested. Within moments, she was their size. And then the shrinking stopped, and the girl fell silent and unconscious.

The two teenagers turned children looked at what seemed to be the latest of their unofficial group. Then Ai, ever the sensible one, shook her head and grabbed Conan's shoulder.

"We need to get back her back to the Doctor's house, now! The Black Organization could still be around here, so we don't have time to lose!"

Conan nodded, then stopped, "Hold on a second. Did we just . . . "

"Look, it doesn't matter what we saw!" snapped Ai, as she grabbed of the downed girl's arms, "We can figure it out when we get home! Now are you going to help me, or not?"

Steeling himself, Conan grabbed the other arm, and both children carried the mystery child home. Soon, the only evidence that proved that they were ever there was a forgotten umbrella, lying in a puddle on the sidewalk.

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COMING UP: Two doctors, the curse, and the drug's effect on it revealed, the opening of a new world for three reason-bound minds (which are extinct in Nerima), and a plan to keep Ranma-chan safe. This and more coming up in Chapter 2!

Follow-Up Notice: For the record, this will not be a yaoi pairing (this is under the assumption that Ranma is still a guy, despite the chaos that will rain down on him when he wakes up). The main characters will be the Martial Artist (Ranma/whatever her name will be when I set it up), and Conan/Shinichi. Pairings are Ranma/Akane and Shinichi/Ran. I'm not sure who Ai will be paired up with, or even if she will be paired up, as the only male she shows interest in is Shinichi, and I can't see a harem pairing working in such a situation.

Also, any mistakes in grammar can also be reported to me. I do not have a beta yet, so any help would be appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

Greetings again from CloudDancer1014. I hope you all enjoyed the last chapter, because here is chapter two!

For the record, I am a college student. That means that I am poorer than dirt. I OWN NOTHING!

I also appreciate the reviews that were dropped in on this. Thank you all. I hope that I manage to live up to your expectations. Also, any flames will be used to reheat food and warm up my dorm room in the fall and winter.

For those who don't know what either series is, look at the bottom of this chapter to see summaries of both series, as well as a viewpoint of where this story takes place in each timeline.

As a final pre-chapter note, Haibara may be seen as OOC here. However, Ranma is in need of comfort, and Haibara knows a bit about how he/she must feel at the moment. Give me a break, and I promise to keep DC's source of cynicism intact.

And now, on with the show!

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As the rain poured heavily on his roof, one Doctor Agasa was enjoying a night out with the son of an old friend who had recently passed on. They had both gone to school together in the old days, but whereas Agasa had enjoyed working with physics and mechanics, his old friend stuck with medical science, with a side hobby of acupuncture to keep with the family traditions.

However, that didn't stop him from coming down with cancer and dying from it. His son had rushed to his father's side after temporarily closing down his practice, and had stayed with him to the very end. The funeral was earlier that day, and having ran into each other, both men had decided to go out and discuss the dearly departed figure.

Both men were enjoying some tea and talking about their different practices when the door slammed open in the other room. Both men jumped and ran to see three children, two of them holding the third up by the arms, as she seemed to be unconcious.

As the man watched, the blond girl on the right looked up and yelled "Doctor Agasa, we need your help. It's the BO!"

Doctor Agasa, the white haired friend of his father jerked into action, grabbing the unconscious red headed child, and rushing her into a bedroom. Following his actions, the young man followed, as the two children realized that they were not alone.

Haibara had frozen, and was considering trying to cover when Conan stopped her. "Don't worry; he looks like a doctor, maybe an acupuncture professional.

" . . . And you know this how?"

Conan smirked at his companion. "The man has a stethoscope in hanging out of his pocket, and the marks on his hand tell me that he's handled a lot of needles. I think we can trust him with at least checking her over."

The two children walked in the room and watched as the man looked over the mysterious girl. He was tall and slim, with a slightly muscular build. He had black hair and a handsome face, and kind, open eyes. They watched as the doctor checked the girl's pulse and temperature, then checked for any head wounds. Then it got weird.

As the man ran his hand over the girl's skull, he frowned, and said "The child seems to have been hit over the head with something metallic. It wasn't hard enough to break or crack the skull, but there does seem to be an unusual amount of ki focused here."

The doctor then ran his hands over the girl's arms and body, keeping a professional look on his face, which slowly turned to a combination of shock and contained fury. "Her arm seems to have been jerked out of its socket, and she has several broken and cracked ribs. Her ki reserves are amazing though! If I didn't know better . . . no, it couldn't be . . . those mushrooms were destroyed when Ranma and Ryouga . . .

Doctor Agase and the two children looked at each other, as the fourth member of the conscious party continued to mutter to himself. Then Conan looked up at him. "Excuse me Ojii-san, but what are you talking about? What is this 'ki' stuff? I think I heard Ran-nee-chan say something about that, but . . ."

The man jumped and turned around. "Oh, sorry, forgot you were there for a moment." He then smiled at them. The mushrooms are unimportant right now, but ki is what some people refer to as the life force that runs through everything. Some martial artists can use it to do great things with it."

The young boy's eyes widened and he nodded his head in understanding. "That's it! An old friend of Ran's sensei told her about some of that, but when I asked, nobody could give me a straight answer."

The man smiled and was about to say more, when the young girl in bed started to stir. Everyone in the room quickly gathered around the bed as the child began to awake . . .

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Ranma floated in darkness. As he hovered above nothing, images of people and events from his life appeared in front of his eyes. First, he saw his father, a great fat bald man. Ranma recalled some of the things he did on the training trip: how his father would steal his food and offer no comfort, and how most of the time they spent together involved running from town to town when things got too hot.

He saw Jusenkyo, and how things changed forever. Before, he couldn't care less about what his father did; afterall, he was his pops, right? However, after Jusenkyo, Ranma got a good look at some of the stuff his father had done to him, especially the multiple engagements. Truthfully, the only reason Ranma hadn't spoken to his mother about disowning the man was because he was still the master of the Saotome style of Anything Goes, and Ranma couldn't risk his martial arts.

A picture of the Tendo family appeared, and Ranma almost smiled. Sure, Soun was a lazy ass, and didn't do much more than support his father's escapades, but his daughters were certainly something to smile about.

Kasumi was like a mother to him, even when he finally met his own mother. She was kind and understanding, and had an endless supply of patience. She was always willing to lend an ear when Ranma had to talk to someone. Honestly, Ranma knew that he would have lost it long ago if it wasn't for her.

Nabiki, on the other hand, was more like his older sister, albeit a rather nosy one. Sure she sold pictures of his girl form, and sold information to his fiances and rivals, but she was also the only thing keeping the dojo afloat and in one piece. Ranma scowled for a moment. The girl had to sell her soul and her childhood at an early age, just to keep a roof over her sisters' head and food in Kasumi's kitchen. To be honest, over half the pictures Nabiki took of her were allowed (and the other half usually featured 'Ranko' taken off her shirt to wring it dry).

Akane though . . . Ranma sighed. Their relationship was complicated. Ever since the failed wedding attempt that had left him bruised and greatly depressed, Akane had seemed . . . nicer. Maybe it was because she had noticed how close he came to using Ryouga's Shi Shi Hokudan after the cask of Spring of Drowned Man water was lost. Maybe she realized that not everything was his fault (especially since he couldn't have done anything to the wedding in his situation).

Or maybe it was the fact that, a few days after the wedding, she saw a certain lost boy get splashed with water on the way from school. Nabiki was walking with her, and offered a pro bono defense for Ranma, telling Akane how Ryouga trapped him in a promise before using it against him.

Mind you, Akane still wasn't completely happy with Ranma, but she forgave him due to the fact that Ranma could not break any promise that he himself made . . . stupid panda!

P-chan had yet to appear in Nerima since then, but Ranma had managed to get her to promise not to get the pig fixed. Sure, Ryouga had used the curse to get close to Akane, but you can't fault a small animal for trying to find some comfort.

Now a heavy dose of Akane's mallet-sama, on the other hand . . . I mean, if it was good enough for the panda and the human water fountain . . .

Since then, Akane and Ranma had an unspoken truce. Ranma would still put his foot in his mouth, but he also tried to take Akane's martial arts training a bit more seriously now, as he had realized that he couldn't be able to protect her forever. Akane, on the other hand, took the welts and buises (Ranma would only strike at her with light finger thrusts, which still caused minor damage) with a grim determination, and had made an effort to try to curve her temper.

Pity he couldn't get her to stop cooking . . .

Ukyo had stopped becoming a major problem, but he still had to deal with her honor. He was still honor bound to marry her, and he had no idea how to get out of that. Well, that wasn't necessarily true. He had one idea, but he had a feeling that his mother wouldn't really go for it . . .

The amazons, on the other hand, were getting annoying. He would have denied the amazons tie to him if it wasn't for the old ghoul. She had told him about what happened to girls who didn't succeed in bringing their husbands back . . . he didn't really like Shampoo, but he didn't want her to die either!

His mother wasn't helping things either. She kept urging him to marry one and take the other two girls as mistresses. As if he didn't have enough women problems already . . . honestly, finding out about that seppuku pledge almost made him want to disown his father immediately . . .

Suddenly the images stopped coming, and a dim light appeared in the distance. As Ranma shaded her eyes, it began to get brighter . . .

Ranma suddenly felt himself returning to consciousness; suddenly, his body felt sore, and his ribs started to remind him that they were still in pain. His head ached, and he realized that he was actually a she at the moment. She opened her eyes, and squinted at the dim light in the room.

She was in a bed, in an unknown room. She glanced up to see a familiar face . . .

"Doctor Tofu?"

Time stood still in the room for Conan and Ai, as they stared at what seemed to be the end of their game. Then, the glasses wearing doctor blinked twice, and sighed. "So what happened this time, Ranma-kun?

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"So let me get this straight" Doctor Agasa muttered, "Ranma here is actually a seventeen year old boy with a water based curse that causes him to change genders depending on the water's temperature. His father has something similar except that he changes into a panda with cold water, and he has been engaged to several women; including a Chinese Amazon . . . are you aware of how INSANE that sounds?"

Doctor Tofu shrugged. Due to the amount of chaos usually caused in these situations, he had stopped to relay the odd situations that surround the young Saotome as well as to give the young girl a chance to dry off and clean up. "Yeah, I do. Unfortunately, Nerima isn't known for its sanity. In fact, there was a situation similar to this a couple of months before I left, involving age changing magic mushrooms."

As the Agasa and the other two children were staring at Doctor Ono Tofu, Ranma stepped out of the bedroom in dry clothes, all supplied by Conan. "Um, actually Doc, it wasn't the mushrooms this time."

Tofu smiled at the shrunken martial artist. "I figured that out when I noticed that something happened to your ki." At Ranma's worried look, he waved his hands in a comforting jester. "Everyone's ki patterns are unique in their own way, and it doesn't usually change throughout one's lifetime; however, your ki has been altered to the point where even I couldn't recognize it. Also, your ki pathways have become narrower than normal, which is probably due to your age change; therefore, you won't be able to use ki beyond a certain density."

As Ranma nodded, a thoughtful look placed upon his face, Haibara cleared her throat and asked "So, Ranma-chan," said person flinched noticeably, but didn't say anything, "if these 'mushrooms' didn't have anything to do with your situation, what happened?"

Ranma-chan scowled and looked away. "I was knocked over this way when the fiancés got into a fight and I tried to break it up. When I landed, I tried to leave when I found some guy being threatened by a thug. I was about to stop him when someone managed to sneak up on me and hit me over the head. Next thing I know, I'm being fed some vial that tastes like Akane's cooking. I felt it do something to my insides, so I tried to find my way out. I . . . I think I blacked out somewhere after that.

The young boy-turned-girl looked back around to see the two children whispering at each other worriedly, while Doctor Tofu looked rather perplexed. Then Conan looked over at the redhead. "Can you tell us what these people looked like, or maybe anything that they may have said?"

Ranma scrunched her face up into a thoughtful look, and replied "I didn't get to see the second person, but the one threatening the other guy was kinda stocky, with a black suit and a hat. As for what they said . . . it's foggy, but I think I they were talking about drinking . . . "At the young boy's incredulous look, she added "They said something about alcoholic drinks . . . I remember something about vodka and . . . and . . . "

"Gin?" Haibara supplied. At the other girls nod, she sighed. "They were using code names. Vodka was the one you saw, while Gin is tall, skinny and blonde. They work for a shadowy organization that specializes in illegal trafficking, blackmail, and assassination."

". . . and a young girl like yourself would know this how?" Doctor Tofu inquired.

Conan smirked. "Well, let's just say that these 'magic mushrooms' aren't exactly that hard to believe in after everything we've been through."

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". . . So, you two are actually seventeen year olds who have been shrunk to the age of seven due to some unnatural fluke with a deadly poison, and are trying to break up this organization while using a washed up detective as your cover . . . and you don't believe our story?" Doctor Tofu queried.

"Shrinking we can understand, but gender changes and martial artists who can break through walls with only a finger thrust?" groused the other doctor.

Haibara and Conan glanced at each other, and the blond said "Well, the gender change isn't that far a stretch." When Doctor Agasa looked at her, she raised her hands in defense. "We did see something of the sort happen when we found him . . . her."

Nobody noticed when Ranma got up and entered the restroom, so it was a shock to all when they heard her shriek. Conan jumped to attention and ran out of the room, while Doctor Tofu looked where the sound came from, and paled. "Oh shit . . . "

"What do you mean 'oh shit'?" Doctor Agasa snapped at his companion.

Doctor Tofu sighed as Conan gently led the shaking, teary eyed redhead back into the room. "Not only has Ranma gotten in over his head in a mess like this, his curse is locked." He then bent down on one knee and folded the small girl into a hug, as she struggled to keep the tears back.

When Ranma-chan had calmed down, he released her, and the girl stepped back. "Thanks, Doc. I needed that." The girl then gave a bitter laugh. "Considering all the shit I've had to deal with in the past two years, I really should be used to this."

"Unfortunately, I don't think it's going to get better, either." As the two Nerimians glanced at Haibara, she continued. "The Black Organization is still looking for Kudo and I, which is why we're acting as children. If they find out that Saotome Ranma is still alive, they're going to come back around and try again, and when they find out what the potion did to you, they'll come for us as well."

"You mean . . ." Ranma swallowed, "you mean I won't be able to go back to Nerima? Why not? We're all martial artists, we can . . . "

Conan interrupted. "Even if all the stuff you've told us about martial artists in Nerima is true, I doubt they'll be able to avoid sniper bullets from several hundred yards away. And if they find you, they are just as likely to go after the people around you as well."

The redhead paled. She had a feeling that Happosai and Cologne might be able to handle something like that, but the others . . . images of Ukyo, his mother, and the Tendos dead flashed through her head, and the battle with Saffron followed. The person she lo . . . liked the most had almost died then . . . if something were to happen to her, or her sisters, or . . .

"Then . . . then what can I do . . . "

"You can stay here with me and Doctor Agasa." Haibara supplied. At the doctor's look, she gave him a look back. "She can't go home, and she has no one else who she can stay with. Besides, we have plenty of room here."

"But I only have two beds here!"

"Then she can sleep with me in my bed, and we can get her one later."

"Wha . . . wait a sec, I can't do that!" Ranma screeched.

The blond girl gave her a look. "Why not?"

"But . . . you're a girl! It wouldn't be right . . . "

Haibara walked over to Ranma and wrapped an arm around her. "You're a girl too, so there's no problem!" When Ranma scowled at her, she sighed, "Look, I know you consider yourself a boy in either form, but you're going to be stuck like this until we can figure out how to cure ourselves. Besides, my bed is more than big enough for both of us to sleep together." She then grinned, "Besides, it's not like we'd be able to do anything perverted like this. So what do you say?"

Both Ranma and Conan blushed a bit, but after a few moments the redhead started to mutter, "Are you sure it's OK? I mean . . . this is all happening so fast and . . ." She then abruptly pulled away and twirled around. "Why are you being so nice to a freak like me anyways?"

Haibara rolled her eyes and smirked. "Oh please, you're looking at a high school detective and a scientist who have been de-aged. You don't come off as that much of a freak compared to us. Besides," her smirk softened into a smile, "I kind of know how you feel."

At Ranma's look she continued. "The Black Organization put me to work for them at an early age. I didn't like the job, but I really had no choice. But even then, I had my sister. She stayed with me when I was at my lowest, and when they forced me to work on poisons, she stuck by me. She even gave her life trying to get me out of there. They took the only bit of stability I had, and when they did, I tried to kill myself with a poison I was testing. The same poison you used on yourself . . . "

As Ranma turned around to look at her, she noticed that Conan and Agase were giving her a weird look. "Can't a girl emphasize with someone without being stared at like she's gone insane?" she snapped at them, and they quickly looked away, sweatdropping as they did so.

She then turned back to Ranma. "Look, you aren't alone. We'll find away to permanently return to our old ages, and until then, you can stay here with me and Doctor Agase while we figure things out, OK?" She held out her hand.

Ranma stared at the hand, and then she hesitantly took it and returned the grasp. "Thanks, Ai-san." She then frowned as a thought occurred to her. "But . . . what about the Tendos and Pop? If I don't come home soon, they'll come looking for me!"

"If you want, we can swing by and check on them. We can tell them that you accidentally stumbled upon my investigation, and you have to stay undercover to help us." Conan tossed in.

Tofu gave the child detective a confused look. "What investigation?"

Conan gave the man a nervous laugh. "I told Ran and Inspector Megure that I'm on an undercover case right now. They just don't know where." He then gave Ranma a calculating look. "In fact, we could probably deliver a note in person."

"But I thought you said I couldn't go home?"

"YOU can't, but if you were to go under a cover . . . "

Haibara started walking around Ranma, trying to look at the confused girl at all angles. "You don't usually wear feminine outfits, do you?" When Ranma shook his head, she nodded. "What about the pigtail: how often do you let it down?"

"Not often. Sometimes I leave in tied when I go to bed."

Haibara nodded, and continued with her inspection. "You know, with a dress, and a different hairstyle, we could fix it so that no one would recognize you."

"But I'm a guy! I'm not supposed to wear dresses!"

"And that's why! But we'll have to work on a cover ID . . . a back-story, and maybe even a cover personality to keep you from being found out . . ."

As Haibara lapsed into silence, Conan looked over and then smirked. "I might have an idea about that."

"What is it?"

The boy walked over and started whispering in her ear. As the boy did so, a crafty smirk snaked across the girls lips that reminded Ranma of Nabiki.

As the rain poured down on the house that night, Ranma realized that he might just be in bigger trouble that he thought . . .

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SUMMARIES:

**Ranma ½:** Saotome Ranma has been taken by his father Genma on a ten year training trip for their martial arts school. Their last stop is the cursed springs of Jusenkyo, where Ranma falls into the Spring of Drowned Girl, while Genma falls into Spring of Drowned Panda. For Ranma, who has been trained to be a man among men, this is a horrible turn of events. Their return to Japan is heralded by Genma taking him to the Tendo dojo in Nerima, where he meets the Tendo sisters: Kasumi the house maker, Nabiki the wannabe Yakuza thug (she has to do some dubious things to keep the dojo afloat), and Akane the resident martial artist. Their father, Soun, broke down after their mother's death a few years back, and has yet to teach another class since, which explains why Nabiki is on the borderlines of being a crook, and Akane isn't anywhere near where she should be, much less where Ranma is.

After a rocky start, Ranma and Akane is engaged, and it is found that, due to pervert problems at school involving the local rich idiot (Kuno Tatewaki), Akane has an aversion to perverted males. This improves slightly, but not permanently enough to halt Xian Pu (Shampoo), a Chinese Amazon who is hunting Ranma-chan, from giving Ranma-kun the kiss of marriage. It is also discovered that Genma sold Ranma off at a drop of a hat in their training trip, resulting in at least one more fiancé in Kuonji Ukyo, an Okonomiyaki chef. More chaos comes in the form of Kuno Kodachi (Kuno's sister), Mousse (blind suitor of Xian Pu), Ku Lon (Chinese Amazon elder and Shampoo's great grandmother; aka Cologne), Happosai (perverted old master of both the Tendos and Saotomes' martial arts school), and Saotome Nodoka (Ranma's mom, who carries a katana and a seppuku pledge that Genma made, promising that Ranma will be a man among men, or else).

The manga contains a mass amount of martial arts mayhem, as well as some typical slapstick humor and fanservice. Ranma ends up locked several times, and several failed cures are discovered and lost. In the end, an event occurs where Akane is caught in the middle of a battle between Ranma and Saffron (a phoenix man, thought to be some kind of demi-god). In order to save her life, Ranma is forced to tear him apart, causing Saffron to be turned into a baby (phoenix rebirth). Afterwards, the parents organize a hasty marriage for Ranma and Akane, which is interrupted rivals and fiancés alike.

There are several other important characters, which will be pointed out as they come, but this is as bare bones as I can go for this.

**Detective Conan/ Case Closed****:** High school detective Kudo Shinichi, after interrupting a shakedown done by the Black Organization, is poisoned and turned into a kid again. He finds an ally in Doctor Agasa Hiroshi, an inventor friend of his, and he becomes Edogawa Conan. He moves in with his potential girlfriend Mouri Ran, and her drunkard father of a washed up detective, Mouri Kogoro. In order to fight the Black Organization, he must make Kogoro into a great detective. He succeeds . . . to a point. He also makes a small detective club out of other kids his apparent age: Yoshida Ayumi, Tsuburaya Mitsuhiko, and Kojima Genta. They are the detective boys, and they also attract local attention.

The heat picks up when Miyano Shiho enters. She is the sister of a previous acquaintance of Conan and the Mouris (a bank robber who tried to raise money to save her sister from the Black Organization; she was killed by them for her efforts). She was also the inventor of Conan's poison. When her sister died, she tried to kill herself, but when she shrunk, she took it as a chance to get out and try and bring them down. In the meantime, she becomes Ai Haibara, and works to develop a cure from scratch. She finds a temporary fix, but it only works when someone is sick. Conan uses it several times.

Other important characters will be introduced as they arrive. Also, Conan attracts mysteries like Ranma attracts fights (which won't be occurring as frequently-the fights, not the mysteries; they'll be appearing often when the fic gets rolling).

Want more info? Go look these up on Wikipedia.

Author's Notes: Error and grammar complaints are welcome; so are flames, but they will be used for other things. I've always seen Haibara as someone who is more than likely to give the cure to Shinichi, and then stay a kid to regain her youth. Besides, Ranma/Akane works here.

COMING UP: Ran and Sonoko enter Nerima, dragging along three small children, the fallout in Nerima is revealed, Ranma's new identity is tested, and Ran and Akane become friends. Expect chaos, and plenty of it!


	3. Chapter 3

Greetings from the ever elusive CloudDancer1014. I apologize for my unusual disappearances, but I've been stuck in the middle of nowhere with an expired trial version of Word on my new laptop. I just recently figured out how to get a new trial period on it (I know it's not exactly legal, but my father has left the activation code back at home, and until I get that, I must do what I must).

For the record, I accidentally over drafted my bank account twice this summer. So if you think you can sue me to get some easy cash, THINK AGAIN!

Reviews are appreciated, and though I respect the rights of readers to review anonymously, it helps to know where to send replies to. Flame at your own risk, for it will do you no good. In fact, I would welcome it. I need something to heat my food and dorm room this winter, and I obviously don't have the money to do that . . .

And in case you haven't figured it out yet, I own nothing of value, much less two anime shows. Heck, I'm not even Japanese! How that assumption could be made is anyone's guess . . .

This also goes for Naruto . . . I'm borrowing a name and personality from there. I would also like to thank Solartiger for his help in creating Ranma's new identity.

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As morning progressed into afternoon in Nerima, a group of five entered the ward. Two of these figures were teenagers, and obviously female. One had long brown hair and a martial arts build, while the other was a short haired blonde who could possibly qualify as a shopping martial artist (a rare breed of fighter, who follows a school designed to reap the greatest fashion for the cheapest price; oddly enough, not one has made it into Nerima yet).

The other three were small kids. One was a boy with black hair and glasses, one was a girl with a blonde Paige boy haircut, and the third . . .

. . . was a girl, with short red hair, styled in childishly cute way. She wore a light blue dress and had a bow of the same color in her hair. She was also fidgeting a lot.

After Ranma's tale (and Tofu's endorsement of said tale), it was decided between Conan, Haibara, and Agase that it wouldn't be wise to allow Ranma to show up as she was. However, the only way to get the word out to Ranma's friends and family that he/she was OK was to send a letter. A phone call could easily be traced, and Ranma didn't know anyone's email, so a letter was the only way.

The dilemma was, that even a letter could be traceable unless it was delivered by an unwitting messenger. This problem was partially solved by the fact that Mouri Ran, Conan's caretaker and Shinichi's love interest, was heading that way to see if she could get some martial arts training. Then again, with the amount of chaos in said area, it wasn't advisable to go alone.

Thus, Haibara came up with an idea to help disguise Ranma-chan, with the help of an anime show that she had watched one Saturday night. When she explained how she got the idea to Conan, she followed it up with a curt explanation of how she was bored and there wasn't anything better to do at the time. She had a reputation to maintain, after all.

This lead to Ranma's, or as she is currently known as, Hina-Marple Agatha's current condition.

Because Ranma's personality was rather unique and easily identified, Haibara worked to correct this by giving her a role to act under. Ranma was known for his brash and confident nature. Agatha-chan, on the other hand, would be meek and shy. In fact, Ranma had to sit through several episodes of an anime to help perfect this. Ranma thought the show was OK, since it had a lot of fighting in it. He also couldn't help but empathize with the main character. His new persona, well . . .

"Hey Agatha-chan, are you OK?" Ran called from ahead. When Agatha looked up, she realized that she had fallen behind, and hurried to catch up.

Ranma's background story was simple: Agatha (as she will be referred to until stated otherwise), was a cousin of Conan's. Her mother was a gaijin (non-Japanese person), and her father was working overseas. They had sent him to stay with Doctor Agase, as he was a trusted friend of the family, and also so she could spend time with her cousin and his friends. Her family had spent some time in Nerima on business, and Agatha was familiar enough with the neighborhood to assist in directing the group, and had saved Ran and her friend, Sonoko, from taking several wrong turns (including one that would have sent them close to the Kuno mansion).

"I-I'm OK, Ran-san" Agatha told the tall brunette as she caught up.

Ran smiled at the apparent girl, and then turned around to continue their trek, missing Agatha's grimace. She hated being treated like a little girl. She was a guy, and a martial artist, for Kami's sake! However, she was also forced to acknowledge that her smaller form was not as tough or strong as her old one.

During the week that she had spent being forced into her new persona, Agatha had found that she could no longer utilize any technique involving even moderately dense ki. She had also discovered that her body had become much more fragile than she was used to, when she found that her hands had friction burns from attempting her Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken (Chestnut Fist). In fact, the only techniques that she was left with were her hand to hand ones. And even then, if she hit something too hard, the chances that she would break a bone were almost assured.

Agatha sighed again. _At least I can still do katas_, she thought.

Another part of her cover story involved her meeting 'Ranma' when she was in the area last. He had defended her from some jerks who thought they could bully a little kid, and he had come to rescue her, and had shown her some simple katas from his fighting style.

When Haibara came up with this, Agatha had tried to fight against it, as it made her look weak. When it was explained that this might help her keep her ability to practice the art in public (in a somewhat watered down form, at least), she reluctantly relented.

As the group of five neared the Tendo Dojo, Ranma couldn't help but feel apprehensive. They had gone all this way without running into one of the usual crazies that inhabited Nerima. Her luck never ran this good. Would she be found out by Nabiki? Would she be able to keep her act together?

Lost in her thoughts, Agatha didn't notice that both Conan and Haibara were looking at him. This lead to her being startled when she felt Haibara's hand on her shoulder.

"Relax Agatha-chan. everything will be fine as long as you stick to the act" Haibara told the girl.

"Yeah," Conan joined in, "besides, we're almost to the Tendo Dojo. What can possibly go wrong now?"

Suddenly, a jarring, maniacal laugh echoed in the streets, causing Agatha look at Conan with a look that said 'Now look what you've done!'

Ran and Sonoko had stopped when they heard the laughing, and Ran got into a defensive stance as both girls looked up and down the street. Agatha, having had a lot of experience with this kind of thing, looked up at the roofs. There stood the tall, black haired gymnast known as Kuno Kodachi.

So, what business brings a menagerie of peasants such as you to this area? Surely it isn't to find and abduct my darling Ranma-sama? Well, speak up!"

After hearing about Nerima's more . . . eccentric inhabitants (and running some background checks to make sure Ranma wasn't exaggerating), Haibara had invented several plans to try and deflect their attention. Now was the time to put one of them into action. Before Ran and Sonoko could fire back an indignant insult, Agatha stepped in front of them.

"P-p-pardon us, K-kuno-san. We're h-h-here to seek extra t-t-training at the T-t-tendo Dojo. We have n-no business with Ranma-san."

Kodachi eyed the small girl. She seemed like a smaller version of that redheaded harlot that her brother seemed obsessed with. However, she was much more polite. "I see . . . well, as long as you don't try to take my Ranma-sama away from me, I will leave you alone. Farewell!" Kodachi then turned around and leapt away.

"Who was that?" Ran wondered aloud..

"Who does she think she is, calling us peasants? Why I ought to . . ." Sonoko ranted.

"Please don't!"

They turned to look at Agatha, who had shouted at them. When she realized what she had done, Agatha blushed, and then looked away. "S-she may not seem like much, but she isn't someone who you'd want to f-fight with right now. She's v-very good with poisons, and s-she won't hesitate to use them on you."

Sonoko paled as she thought of being poisoned by the obviously insane girl. Ran, on the other hand, was thoughtful. "How did she do that . . . jumping that high, I mean?"

Agatha brightened up. "She used her ki to do that!"

Ran blinked twice, and then widened her eyes with surprise. You mean that there are actually people who can do that? I always assumed that was mostly conjecture and legend?"

Agatha shook her head. "No, there are many people who can use their ki. Most of them, like Kuno Kodachi, can use it to make themselves stronger, while a few others can even throw it around like a weapon!"

This earned a loud scoff from Sonoko. "Oh come on, you don't actually believe that, do you?"

Agatha racked her brain, trying to think of a way to get the tall blond to take this seriously. After all, you have to know what to expect in order to survive in Nerima. Then it hit her. "I-it's true! Ranma-nee-san had shown me how he does it!"

Sonoko didn't respond to this, though her skeptical look did start showing some doubts. In order to set up Agatha's background, Haibara had coached her on how to refer to his real self, as if he was her idol. This meant that both Sonoko and Ran had heard several stories about 'Ranma-nee-san' already.

"Come on, the dojo shouldn't be that far from here!" Ran exclaimed as she turned around and continued to walk. Sonoko and the apparent children hurried to catch up.

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Agatha and the rest of the group travelled up the street towards the Tendo Dojo in a state of shock. While the rest of the Nerima was in it's usually, pre-fight condition, here it was a disaster area! The neighbors seemed to have barricaded themselves in their houses, and huge holes had taken up residence in their walls. Craters were dug into the street.

As they reached the dojo, they found it in the same condition as the rest of the neighborhood. Agatha almost wept.

"What the hell happened here?" exclaimed Sonoko.

"Chaos happened here." replied a voice behind them. The group jumped, startled, to find a moderately tall girl with a brown pageboy haircut. She wore the blue Furinkan school uniform, and looked as if she hadn't had a good night's sleep in days.

"About a week ago, the resident defender of the dojo . . . disappeared suddenly. Since then, several challengers, as well as his fiancés, visited and didn't want to leave without a fight. Since no one was here with the skills to fight them off, they took it out on each other, as well as the property around here." Nabiki informed the group. She then gave them a look. "You wouldn't happen to be looking for him, or trying to challenge the dojo as well, would you?"

"N-no!" Ran stuttered, doing a decent impression of Agatha, "I was told to come here by my sensei. She recommended this place if I wanted to continue to improve in the arts."

Nabiki sighed in relief. "Sorry to disappoint you, but the only one who could possibly help you has vanished without a trace."

"B-but what about the master of the dojo? Why isn't he . . . "

"And what did you mean earlier," inserted Sonoko, "when you said 'his fiancés'? What is he, some kind of Casanova?"

Nabiki sighed. "It's a long story. I . . . " Nabiki paused, and then smacked her palm to her forehead. "Sorry, forgot to introduce myself. Blame the lack of sleep if you want; haven't had any since Saotome-kun disappeared." She then held out her hand for Ran and Sonoko to shake. "Name's Tendo Nabiki. And you are . . . ?"

Ran shook first. "My name's Mouri Ran, and this is my friend Suzuki Sonoko-"

Nabiki froze, and her face widened in astonishment. "Suzuki, as in the Suzuki clan? As in one of the wealthiest clans in Japan?"

Sonoko couldn't help but smirk at this. "It seems like my fame precedes me." causing Conan and Agatha to roll their eyes behind her back. This caught Nabiki's eye.

"And who are these three back here?"

When Nabiki's sharp eye rested on the lone redhead in the party, Agatha quickly fell back on Haibara's emergency plan. She internally braced herself, swallowing her pride . . . and then hid behind Conan.

Conan couldn't help but sweat drop at this. "My name is Edogawa Conan!" He gestured to Haibara. "This is my friend, Ai Haibara," and then behind himself, "and my cousin, Hina-Marple Agatha. Pleased to meet you." He then said as an aside. "My cousin is kind of shy, but she's been around here before, so she offered to help us find this place."

Nabiki looked the children over, specifically focusing on the one hiding behind the boy's back. _She looks very similar to Ranma's female form, but he'd never go for that haircut. And the whole outfit just screams insecure. He'd never submit to hiding behind someone either . . . _If she only knew how much of a fight Agatha had given for this part of the act.

"Why don't you come inside for a bit? I can fill you all in over some tea . . . if Kasumi has some going, that is." This last part was said so softly, even Agatha's keen ears had problems hearing it. Still, it greatly worried her.

As they walked into the house, the group noticed that despite its ragged appearance, the inside of the house was pristine. Nabiki walked into the kitchen for a little bit, and came back out. "If you'll just sit at the table, tea and cookies will be brought out shortly." She said.

A few minutes later, a girl with long, chestnut brown hair came in carrying a tray with cookies and tea. "Oh my, it's been a while since we've had some friendly company for a change. I'm Tendo Kasumi."

As Kasumi set the trays down, Agatha ran her eyes over her face. She hid it better than Nabiki did, but Agatha could still see signs of depression and exhaustion on her face. Her heart sank even further at this.

After everyone had grabbed a cookie and a cup of tea, Nabiki cleared her throat. "All right, what would you like to hear first?"

Ran managed to beat her friend to the punch. "What happened to all the masters here? I mean, this place has to have somebody here aside from its defender?"

Nabiki sighed again. "My father is the master of this dojo, but he hasn't taught a class since our mother died. Saotome Ranma's father, Genma, is the master of our sister school, but is far too lazy to do anything. Our sister Akane is the only other martial artist in the house, and she's . . . unavailable right now."

Sonoko opened her mouth again, but before she could ask her question, she was interrupted again. "What do you mean 'unavailable'?"

At this Nabiki visibly winced, and then gave a heavy sigh. "It's kind of a long story . . . "

Finally, Sonoko managed to butt in. "What I want to know, is what you meant by 'fiancés'? Is this guy some kind of two-timing pervert or something or . . ."

Agatha clenched her fist and was about to snap at the (currently) older blond, but Nabiki beat her to the punch. A fiery look entered her eyes as she looked up and snarled, "Ranma is anything BUT perverted, and you'd do well to remember that!"

Sonoko paled and shrunk back in terror at the Ice Queen's anger, while Agatha stared at Nabiki in shock. The others just sat there taken aback.

After a moment, Nabiki visibly calmed herself. "If you really must know, Ranma has had a rather _unique _past. His father took off with him on a training trip when he was six, and for the ten years that he travelled since then, has taken to selling his son out for everything he could get, earning Ranma approximately fifty engagements."

Eyes widened and jaws dropped all around, and Agatha nearly fainted. _Fifty engagements? How . . . damn that Panda! I knew I was had at least more than ten after me, but FIFTY!?!_

Nabiki continued. "Through comprehensive negotiations and Ranma's father's unique . . . gift", Nabiki seemed to spit this word out as if it was poison, "we have managed to get out of all but two of them honorably, and that doesn't include a mess that Ranma got himself into in China. As of right now, Ranma-kun has two viable fiancés and one wife by Chinese Amazon law. Mind you, the proceedings aren't exactly legal by Japanese law here, but that doesn't mean anything to a Chinese Amazon."

"Um, Tendo-san . . . "Ran hesitantly said.

Nabiki tiredly smiled at the brunette. "Call me Nabiki; Tendo-san is my father."

"Right. Nabiki-san, what exactly is a Chinese Amazon?"

Nabiki winced yet again, and muttered something about outsiders under her breath, but before she could give an answer, Agatha stepped in.

"Ch-Chinese Amazons are a hidden group in China. V-v-very few people know about th-them, outside of t-travelling martial artists, or Ch-Chinese government officials."

Nabiki blinked at this description. "You seem to know a lot about Nerima. Who are you again?" she asked, giving Agatha a lidded stare.

Agatha flinched and quickly looked down; giving into the heavy training that Haibara had forced her to go through. "I-I visited Nerima s-several months ago. Wh-while I was here, I-I w-was rescued f-from some bullies by R-Ranma-kun. H-he told me a little bit a-about Nerima . . ."

By the end, Agatha was blushing rather badly, and as the excuse seemed to fit, Nabiki brushed off her suspicions. Agatha, on the other hand, was rather embarrassed by the cover story.

"Anyways, ever since Ranma arrived here, he has been the center of a lot of chaos. It was almost common belief that she was some sort of chaos magnet." Nabiki continued on. "Unfortunately, even without his presence, we've yet to see any changes. In fact, it seems to be much more peaceful when she was around."

Her face darkened suddenly, and a haunted look entered her eyes. "Four days ago, Kuonji Ukyo, Ranma's other fiancé, and Shampoo, his Chinese Amazon wife, got into a fight and brought it over to Akane. Shampoo ended up getting rather violent, and ended up breaking my sister's arm." Lost in her story, Nabiki never noticed Agatha's clenched fists, or her pale face. Conan and Haibara, on the other hand, were busy trying to keep their friend from blowing their cover. "Ukyo managed to reign in Shampoo when she noticed, but ever since, Akane has holed herself up in her room, and hasn't come out yet."

Agatha, just coming out of her suppressed rage, Agatha looked up at Nabiki. As Ranma, she would have never expected to see such a look on the infamous Ice Queen's face, but she couldn't help but notice the fear and worry that had made their mark on the girl. "C-can we go up and see her?"

Nabiki snapped her face back into attention, and looked at the redheaded child. "Why?"

Agatha grew flustered, but before she could put her words straight, Conan stepped in for her. "Agatha-chan told us all about Ranma and his life. We'd like to meet her, and see if we could cheer her up!"

Nabiki stared at the boy for a few seconds, and then shrugged. "It might work. Akane has always had a thing for kids . . ."

Before she could finish, Agatha jumped up from the table and ran towards the stairs, Conan (having decent enough reflexes) followed her immediately, making it seem like they were racing together. Haibara, on the other hand, slapped her forehead and muttered something about idiot boys before following suit.

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Haibara caught up to the others in front of what she assumed was Akane's room. However, Agatha had an unsure look on her face. Haibara, noticing this, walked past her and immediately knocked on the door, earning an agitated look from her friend. Suddenly, a harsh voice called out "Who's there?"

Nabiki, having walked up to see what was going on, called into the room. "Akane, you seem to have some visitors who want to see you."

"Tell them to go away!"

Agatha seemed to shrink back from the door, before she felt Nabiki's hand on her back. Looking back, she noticed a pleading look from the girl, throwing her for a loop. "I don't think they want to listen." She then reached over, open the door, and pushed the three children into the room, closing them in.

The first thing that Agatha noticed was the smell. It was horrible, and reminded the boy turned girl about how her father smelled during their training trip. Then she saw Akane.

The girl hadn't bathed in a while, and hadn't really done anything else for herself. Her dark blue hair was messy, and her clothes rumpled and dirtied. Black rings under her eyes told her that she hadn't slept in a while. Even worse, a dead look had entered her eyes. On her right arm was a plaster cast.

The girl sat on her bed, staring at the three children that had entered her room. Alternatively, the three children stared up at her, shocked and horrified at what seemed to be a broken soul.

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Outside of the room, Nabiki, Ran, and Sonoko stood waiting for some sign of hope.

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COMING UP: Agatha and company try to bring Akane back to her old self without spilling the beans, Ranma's feelings are partially revealed in a roundabout way, and Akane and Ran become friends.

Follow-up notice: I apologize for the delay, and for not including Akane and Ran's friendship scene here. I'm just now recovering from summer burnout, and I've got other things to prepare for in my life. I should have the next chapter out in a few weeks though. Give me time.

On other fronts, I may be putting my Doctor Who cross on hold for a bit. Torchwood: Children of Earth threw my muse for a loop, and I'm not sure whether my muse is telling me to quit, or to change directions with it. It annoys me. However, rest assured that even if I drop that, I will never stop writing my other plans. My muse is loud and obnoxious enough to ensure that.

I've also got a third story that will be put out soon. It will be the dark one, and I've been working on how Ranma and the others interact to get the best results. This is not your typical Ranma.

Please review, and don't be pissed off about the cliffhanger. The next scene still needs some work, and I didn't want to wait any longer with an update.

Also, I'd like to thank Solartiger for helping me with Ranma's new name. For those who don't get the references, check out Naruto and Agatha Christie.


	4. Chapter 4

Yes, this is a second posting of this. Due to a mistake while posting another chapter, I had to remove Chapter four from here. Fortunately, a fan of mine happened to have saved a copy of this, because I couldn't find anything! Speaking of which, thank you, Windzsong!

Just as a precautionary measure, I thought I'd introduce you all (or reintroduce, for some of you) the concept of how some Japanese people use honorifics. For example, if a young child were talking to an older female, they could refer to her as either a sister (nee-san), or as an aunt (obaa-san). The honorific 'san' could also be replaced by the word 'chan' to indicate a closer relationship, like if this was a family friend that the child was talking to. Alternatively, if the older party was male, he could in turn be called out as a brother (Nii-san) or uncle (ojii-san). The 'san' can also be replaced by 'kun', but I haven't really read any manga where that takes place.

These honorifics are used because of the odd relationship between Ran and Conan. Ran sees Conan as something akin to a brother, and in the manga that I have read, Conan often refers to her as 'Ran-nee-chan'. In fact, in an earlier chapter of the manga, Ran almost insists upon him doing that.

As a final note, I would like to remind you all that I am currently attending college. This means that I currently own less than nothing due to high tuition and housing rates. Unless one of you wants to own my collection of debts, I would advise no suing me over the absurd belief that I own either Ranma or Case Closed. Trust me, I wouldn't be in debt right now if I did own one or both of them.

And of course, reviews are always appreciated. Flames however would go in a storage bin until winter, when they will be used to heat my dorm room.

* * *

Akane stared, blinking, at the three young intruders who had entered her room.

Agatha couldn't help but do the same. Yet, while Akane's mind was lost in confusion, Agatha's was lost in shock and despair.

Akane looked horrible, and it wasn't for the fact that her arm was stuck in a cast. Her eyes were red, and it was obvious that she had spent much of her time crying. She wore a set of pajamas that looked like they hadn't been taken off for a few days. In fact, they also showed that she hadn't found much comfort in sleep, if she even slept at all. If it wasn't for the heavy emotions going through her mind right now, Agatha would have had to turn away blushing due to the fact that her pajama top wasn't buttoned properly (which showed just enough skin to get the old Ranma blushing in embarrassment).

But it was her eyes that held most of Agatha's attention. Her eyes looked empty, as if something had died in there.

It honestly scared the hell out of her.

Conan, who had been pushed in right behind her, had, as a detective, paid more attention to her physical appearance. Thus, he had made a point to look anywhere but where Akane's shirt opened up.

Haibara, however, was not affected by this scene. For one thing, she was female, and therefore immune to the effects of a bit of intimate flesh being exposed. She had also seen much worse than what Akane's eyes showed her.

Thinking quickly, Haibara adopted a look of child-like concern and walked in front of Agatha, elbowing her hard in the ribs as she passed to get her attention. "Ano . . . are you OK, Nee-chan (sister)?

Akane blinked in confusion a few more times, and then, in a voice that betrayed the fact that she obviously hadn't spoken in a while, croaked "Um, I'm OK . . . who are you again?"

Haibara smiled, and kept the act on. "My name is Ai Haibara, and these are my friends Hina-Marple Agatha-chan, and Edogawa Conan-kun!" She then grabbed Agatha's arm and hung on it. "Agatha-chan has told us so much about you!"

"Really . . ." Akane couldn't help but be confused. Here she was, wallowing in her own depression, and then three kids appear almost out of nowhere. She had always prided herself on her martial arts ability, though even she had to admit that she had nothing on her aqua-transsexual fiancé . . . but to have been beaten so easily like that . . . and then for him to disappear altogether . . .

Honestly, she wasn't really planning on ending her sulk at all. Shampoo had waken her up to the fact that some of the fights in Nerima were not on the friendliest of terms, and she realized that, with both Ukyo and Shampoo adding to that blow, even he may not have. . . Akane shook her head roughly. _No! Can't think that! Ramna can't be . . ._

Taking a deep breath, the blue haired girl looked at the red-headed child. "I'm sorry, but have we met before? I really don't recall meeting you . . ."

Agatha, meanwhile, had managed to snap herself out of the funk she was in, and promised herself that there would be no more mercy offered to the Amazons. However, by the time Akane managed to answer, she was already plotting what she could do to get back at them (she may not like being violent with girls, but even Saotome Ranma had his/her limits). Thankfully, her startled reaction fit perfectly for her required persona.

"Um . . . R-ranma-nii-san told me all about you . . . "

Akane cocked her head in confusion. "Ranma-nii-san?"

Agatha nodded her head nervously. "Y-yes. H-he saved me from some b-bad people when I w-was in town l-last. H-he told me all about you a-and the r-rest of h-his friends."

Unexpectedly, this caused Akane to deflate, and the dead look worsened in her eyes. "Yeah, he probably told you that I'm a violently uncute tomboy with thick legs and a horrible cook to boot . . . "

Agatha stood there, staring confusedly at Akane. _What the hell? Usually she gets pissed off when I say that, but now it's like she's sad or something? What the hell happened to her?_

Suddenly, inspiration struck, and was forced to stutter her words out quickly, rather than let her instincts of a week ago catch up to her. "Th-th-that's not true! I mean", Agatha blushed heavily when she noticed Akane's full attention return to her, "he did s-say that you weren't a g-good cook, b-but he was always t-talking a-about you." Agatha felt her face heat up, and she instinctively started pushing her pointer fingers together, not unlike how the blunette that her cover personality was based off of. Quickly, she pushed her last statement through, before she could chicken out and before Akane could try and start her sulking again. "I-Infact, I k-kinda th-think h-h-he l-likes y-y-you . . . "

Akane stood there, mouth agape, looking at the blushing, stuttering little redhead. Haibara, however, couldn't help but smile at the couple, ignoring a slight pang of jealousy.

After a few moments of silence, Akane got up from her bed, knelt down, and gave Agatha a hug. Agatha immediately froze at the contact. Having had no experience with positive physical contact as Ranma, she immediately had several nasty thoughts about a certain overbearing Amazon.

Both Akane and Haibara noticed this, and as Akane pulled back from the hug to look at her, Haibara immediately went into damage control mode. Grasping Agatha's hand, she started rubbing the apparent young girl's back. "Sorry about that. Agatha-chan is painfully shy. We only now just got her used to being around her cousin and me." As understanding flickered onto Akane's face and relief entered Agatha's body, Haibara then glanced at Conan, who was now staring determinedly out the window.

"Um, nee-san, you might want to fix your shirt. I don't think Conan-kun is feeling entirely comfortable right now."

Akane gave the blond girl an odd look, and then seemed to notice the lone boy who seemed intent on not looking in her direction. Finally, she redirected her gaze to her chest. After realizing what her shirt was inadvertently showing, she gave a loud "Eep!" and then turned around to try and fix it, missing the blush that both Conan and Agatha had, as the young boy-turned-even-younger-girl finally realized that her fiancé was indecent.

Of course, being who she is, Akane's first instinct was to enter pervert bashing mode. However, not even her infamous temper would make her harm such a child . . . and he was making a point not to stare . . .

After getting her shirt properly buttoned, Akane then turned around to find Agatha moving hesitantly closer to her. The small redhead sniffed a few times, and then wrinkled her nose cutely. "N-nee-chan, you r-really stink!" This of course made Akane blush in abject embarrassment.

"I guess I really don't look like much, do I?" Akane asked, as she made a point to get up and grab some clothing. Turning around to give the three (apparent) children a smile, she added "I haven't really been feeling my best lately, but I'm feeling much better now."

Agatha couldn't help but give a bright smile as the Tomboy that she remembered made her appearance again. Haibara smirked at the girl. Conan, on the other hand, just looked away bashfully.

Akane then made her way towards the door, only to give a squawk when she opened it. Nabiki, having been concerned for her sister, had pressed her ear towards the door, and of course had fallen through when her younger sister opened it. The odd trio couldn't help but laugh at the sight.

After the blue haired tomboy managed to get past the mercenary, Nabiki then turned to the kids. Smiling kindly (an act that completely through Agatha for a loop), she said "Thanks for getting her out of that funk. We've all been worried that Akane would never come out of there." The smile then turned into a light smirk. "If you go downstairs, Kasumi-chan is distracting Mouri-san and her friend in the dining room." She then turned to follow Akane into the bathroom so that she could assist with the cast.

* * *

The trio had found Ran and Sonoko sitting and talking with Kasumi downstairs. They had returned to the dining room after having Kasumi assure the two older girls that nothing bad would happen to the apparent kids. In fact, they had been downstairs for about half an hour before Nabiki and Akane entered the room.

Akane had cleaned up to the point of looking decent. Nothing against her normal looks implied, but Agatha could still see the dark circles under her sore eyes, and while the dead look in them had cleared up, it was still not up to her usual standards.

Upon entering the room, Akane couldn't help but stare at the blond and brunette sitting with her eldest sister. However, before she could react, Nabiki began the introductions.

"Mouri-san, Suzuki-san, may I introduce my sister, Akane. She's currently the only defender we have right now until Saotome-kun comes back. Akane-chan, meet Mouri Ran and Suzuki Sonoko." Nabiki then gave a slight smirk. "Mouri-san is here seeking additional training in the arts"

Akane froze for a moment, as expressions of shock, confusion, pride, and embarrassment fought for supremacy on her face. However, the expression that one out in the end was more like one of shame.

"I'm afraid I must apologize. You came all this way for training, and we don't even have anyone to train you right now," Akane remarked.

Ran looked put out for a moment, and then asked, "How long until your cast comes off?"

"About four to six weeks. Why?"

Ran gave a hopeful look. "Could you train me then?"

Akane's eyes widened for a moment, and then dimmed. Bowing her head to the floor, she muttered "I don't think I should. I'm not really that good . . . "

Agatha winced. While she, as Ranma, was never really good at reading people, Haibara had gone through hoops to give her the basics of reading a person, as well as watching what she said. While foot in mouth was still a problem for her, her training in this had paid off quite well.

Then again, Haibara had made a point to define the art of diplomacy as 'fighting using one's words and mind'. Let it never be said that Saotome Ranma ever backed down from training in a fighting art.

"A-Akane-san, don't p-put yourself d-down like that. Ranma-nee-san used to say that you were still one o-of the b-better martial artists h-here, as l-long as y-you k-kept your t-temper . . . "

Suddenly, Agatha realized that all of the Tendo girls had their attention on her. She immediately put Ai's patented training into action again, and hid behind both Conan and Ai, ignoring the part of her that balked at this.

Akane, having watched the small redhead scramble behind her friends, had to suppress a giggle. She then knelt down and gave the girl a curious look. "Did he really say that, Agatha chan?"

Agatha nodded; keeping her eyes firmly on the floor as she once again embraced the personality of a certain anime character. Considering that she was trying to 'diplomatically' recall several things that she could remember concerning her fiancé's fighting flaws. "R-Ranma-nee-san would always talk about how you fought. H-he told me that you'd be a great fighter i-if you c-could k-keep c-control of your t-temper." Glancing upward to make sure Akane wasn't mad, she had to suppress the surprise that she felt when she noticed that Akane, rather than showing anger, was instead looking introspective, as if she was taking mental notes.

"Hey, Agatha-chan," Agatha jerked around in surprise to look at Ran, who was now giving her an odd look. "I couldn't help but notice that whenever you talk about this 'Ranma' person, you keep calling him 'nee-chan'. Don't you mean 'nii-chan'? I mean, he is a boy, right?"

Agatha internally sighed. As part of the coaching and background work, Ai and Conan had put this together to try to warn the two older girls about the infamous Jusenkyo cursed victims that plagued Nerima. They even made her memorize several lines that would assist in her disguise as a six year old girl. Unfortunately, Ran was distracted, thinking about the advanced martial art techniques and training that she could get from this trip, while Sonoko ignored it as a weird kid thing.

Unfortunately, there was no time to ease the two into the idea of shape-shifting martial artists, as a large panda suddenly ambled into the room. Ignoring the shocked gasps of two teenage girls, as well as the wide eyes of two apparent children who partially didn't believe that Jusenkyo was real, the panda reached over, grabbed the tea kettle, and then dumped it over its head.

As the panda quickly became a older man, wearing a dirtied martial arts outfit and a bandanna, both girls stood in shock at the odd (by non-Nerima standards) scene, and then quietly fainted.

* * *

"So let me get this straight: somewhere in China, there are a group of magical springs that can curse people to turn into animals and stuff? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?!?"

Five minutes had passed between when the girls had fainted and when the girls were revived. It took another five for the story to be told. Understandably, Sonoko wasn't fully convinced.

Nabiki gave a slight shrug. "I don't really care whether you believe it or not. However, you will have to deal with the ridiculously impossible as a daily event while you are here. Might as well give in."

Ran, on the other hand, looked a bit shaken. "Um, Nabiki-san, you said earlier that Saotome-san took his son to this training ground thing. Is he cursed too?"

"The mercenary girl chuckled, and gave the small redheaded child a grin. "He did, and I think that's the reason for Agatha-chan's mix up, am I right?"

Agatha blushed, and lowered her head so no one could see it. Many in the room believed it to be embarrassment, though only Conan and Ai knew why she was embarrassed. "I-I've always w-wanted a-an o-older s-s-sister." She mumbled, though it sounded somewhat forced to her two friends.

Ran and Sonoko blinked, as Nabiki explained. "Due to the actions of his idiot father, Saotome-kun has been cursed to turn into a rather fetching redheaded girl when splashed with cold water. This has caused him, or should I say, her much embarrassment, due to the odd number of nuts that tend to find their way here."

Ran gaped openly at this, while Sonoko gasped, and exclaimed, "He turns into what!?!" Feminine fury became an open emotion on her face. However, she was prevented quite forcibly from continuing that thread, by an unexpected source.

Akane forced her battle aura to the front, shocking both girls into quiet submission. Her sisters, on the other hand, look on quite worriedly. After about ten seconds of this, she forcibly calmed down.

"I may not be the best person to defend him, but Ranma is no pervert. A stupid boy, maybe, but I have rarely see him do anything perverted without there being another explanation handy", she growled out. As her sisters and Agatha looked on in shock, she continued. "He has not done anything remotely perverted with either of his forms, and I don't want anyone badmouthing him." A look of sorrow crossed her face, as she seemed to fold into herself. "I've done enough of that myself."

Kasumi quickly moved over to hold the girl in a hug. However, Sonoko wasn't completely convinced. "I don't mean to be a bitch about this, but do you have any proof to back that up? I mean," she quickly explained as Akane shot her a harsh glare, "I know several boys who'd do anything to have that form, and I don't even want to think about what they'd do with it!"

Nabiki gave another chuckle, which then turned into a deeper laugh. "While I am loath to give away a secret for free, and I would never give away something like this for any money, I might know of something that could convince you." When everyone else gave her a look, she continued on with her tale. "Saotome-kun's father took him around many places for his training, but he's had little contact with girls his age during that time. He was also told that 'girls were a distraction to the art' by the fool. In fact, that is the ONLY thing the man has ever told him about girls, other than how weak he thought them."

Every female, including Agatha, who had dropped most of those thoughts long ago, held darkened faces at this remark. Nabiki, on the other hand, ignored this as she moved on. "Due to the necessary need for information on our guest when they arrived a year and a half ago, I took the liberty of adding a few . . . information sources . . . to several parts of the house." At Kasumi's disapproving look, she added "Nothing visual mind you, but some audio bugs around the house has kept me well ahead of Panda-san, as there are a few items of information that I'm pretty sure he didn't want anyone to know about."

"What do you mean Nabiki?" Akane asked her sister.

Said sister seemed to hesitate for a moment, which worried Agatha, as it was very out of character for her to do. "While Saotome-kun has approximately fifty betrothal agreements out there, those are only the ones that were made for his father's son. There are also about a dozen out there that are for his father's daughter as well."

Agatha's stomach turned, as she immediately realized what that meant for her. Akane, unfortunately, had to have it spelled out for her. "Huh? But Genma-ojii-san doesn't have a daughter . . . "

"He does when his son is hit with cold water. And while I will admit that it doesn't really matter to us, I doubt that anyone else will see it that way, especially if it means getting 'Ranma-chan' as their blushing bride." At this, it was a rather difficult for Agatha to keep from spilling her guts at the moment.

"Anyways," Nabiki continued on with her story, "As Ranma-kun's father never bothered explaining things about gender related issues, he knew nothing about such things, let alone enough to be considered a pervert. And while I will admit that it would have been possible for him to pick such things out on his own, it appears that he never did."

"And you know this how?" Sonoko asked rather skeptically.

"Because the first person to actually tell him anything close to 'the talk' is currently in this room."

Agatha froze in shock and horror, while Kasumi paled beyond disbelief, and then narrowed her eyes in a rather fierce expression. Considering whom she was, this was beyond furious for her. "Nabiki, if you even think . . . "

Nabiki interrupted "If you even think I'd tell what that conversation entailed, my dear sister, you obviously don't think much of me." When Kasumi didn't react, she continued on. "The only reason I listened to that conversation was because I was curious about what was going on at the beginning, and I wouldn't reveal the information that I discovered for all the gold in Japan, China, and the United States!" However," her gaze then moved to Sonoko. "The contents of that conversation assure me of the fact that Ranma-kun had never, has never, and will never use his female form for anything truly perverted."

She then gave Akane a rather wry smirk, "Unless, of course, certain parties were to convince him otherwise." Akane was, understandably, clueless, but having caught the suggestion, started stuttering denials in a way that even Agatha was impressed by. Or would be, as said girl hadn't gotten the joke. Conan, on the other hand, had to suppress what might have been a rather perverted giggle.

Ran had been listening to the conversation quite passively, and was willing to go with what Nabiki had explained. She then looked over at Akane. "Um, I don't mean to sound shallow or selfish or anything, but after your arm heals, could you train me?"

Akane chewed on her lip a bit, and then, hesitantly, said "I could, but I honestly don't know how much I could teach you. I mean, I'm pretty good, but compared to Ranma and some of the others . . . "

Ran sighed, and then nodded her head. "I understand, and I would be willing to learn whatever you could show me. Maybe we could spar when you're better?"

Akane smiled. "I would love too!"

Both girls smiled at each other. Ran then blinked, and then blushed in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, but I had almost forgotten." She then grabbed her purse and started rummaging through it. After a bit of digging, she pulled out an envelope and handed it to Nabiki. I was told to hand this to you by a friend of mine. Since I didn't know how personal it could be, I thought I'd wait until the end to give this to you."

Nabiki calmly opened the envelope and slid a letter out of it. She unfolded it and started to read. As she did so, her audience couldn't help but watch in awe as the façade of the Ice Queen disappeared. When she reached the end, her eyes were wider than most thought possible, and her face was pale.

"Well," Akane asked impatiently, "What does it say? Who is it from?"

Nabiki turned from her sister, swallowed, and said "It's from Ranma." At Akane and Kasumi's gasp, and Sonoko and Ran's curious looks, she bent her head back to the letter, and read it out loud.

_Dear Nabs:_

_I'm sorry, but I won't be able to return to Nerima for a while. Due to the rather severe way that I left, I managed to land in a rather nasty situation. In fact, I managed to land in the middle of a criminal investigation. The criminals managed to escape, but not before trying to kill me. The only reason I'm still alive is due to a few undercover agents who risked everything just to get me out of there. As they now know my face (at least when I'm male), I cannot let it be seen at this time. Currently, I will be staying with the detectives who saved me, so that I may help get through this sooner._

_On another note, the reason I sound so 'eloquent' is because one of the people working this case is acting as a scribe for me, so that they may monitor what I write. They would have just screened a letter from me, but said scribe took one look at my attempt and decided to burn it in disgust. The scribe would also like to register for a slot in any future endeavors to kill, maim, lynch, or otherwise harm a certain panda. She was not very happy when I told her about my schooling. It was a struggle to get her to keep your nickname included in this letter._

_I would like to ask that you spread a message to said Panda, his walking fountain friend, and the Chinese Amazons. The group that my new friends were investigating is rather vicious, and has a long reach. Therefore, I would like to ask that they please not go looking for me. I would also like to include the same to you, Nabiki. I understand that a Cologne and her tribe has a lot of fighting knowledge and experience, but I doubt that even they can dodge a sniper bullet from half a mile away._

_I can't promise you anything, but I will try to contact you in the near future, hopefully without someone writing what I want to say for me. However, I would like to ask that you tell Akane and Ukyo that I'm OK, and not up to anything perverted. In fact, I would like for you to try and help Akane with her temper, and once it's better, to give her the scrolls that my father keeps in our room. I'd tell you where, but I have a feeling that you know that already. I'd like to think that they won't try to follow up on who I am, but I'd rather Akane be ready for anything, once she can handle it. All I ask is that she shares the information with one Mouri Ran. The detective leading this investigation seems quite fond of her, and I think he'd like the idea that she'd be able to better protect herself from any direct confrontations._

_Give everyone my regards, and tell the Tomboy to train hard, because if she's at a decent level when I return, I might just take her up as my first student, followed by her own student of course._

_Sincerely,_

_Saotome Ranma_

_Scribed by an anonymous source._

_Note from Scribe: This scribe would like to state that Panda-san should be shot on site. In fact, this scribe would like to suggest a possible magical sex change to his panda form, followed by his inclusion to a panda breeding program, if no one else tries to get a hunting party going for him first. She would also suggest a possible stay in a mental institution for Ranma's mother, as to hold her son to an outdated tradition such as a suicide pact is horrible and wrong!_

No one spoke after Nabiki finished reading the letter, though Agatha did shoot Ai a glare, as she did not recall the comment about her mother in the letter before OK-ing it. Ai just shrugged, as she didn't like the fact that a crazy women was trying to rule her friend's life because of a stupid pledge.

Finally, Nabiki swallowed, and asked Ran "Who did you say gave this to you?"

Ran winced, realizing that she wouldn't be able to get out without talking about it. "My childhood friend, Kudo Shinichi sent it to me in a letter, asking for me to give it to you unopened."

"Kudo Shinichi . . . as in THE Kudo Shinichi? The high school detective with more cases to his name than most certified detectives? THAT Kudo Shinichi?"

Ran meekly nodded her head, wilting under what seemed to be a thoroughly cracked Nabiki. Suddenly, Nabiki couldn't help but start giggling. Said giggling soon turned into a cackle, and then a full spread guffaw. The rest of the room watched her, as finally, she managed to gasp out "Oh Ranma! Just when I think there is nothing you could do that wouldn't surprise me, you manage to land in even more trouble than even I can imagine!"

Suddenly, Nabiki's gaze snapped back into a serious mode, and her laughing cut off almost simultaneously. She turned her gaze to Akane. "Akane, I will be giving you the scrolls Ranma wrote about, and I will even go over them with you to help set up some lesson plans. Considering the trouble Ranma is in now, I'd rather us be prepared if this group turns their eyes on us. Mouri-san," her gaze then turned on said brunette. "We would be honored to teach you for free, so to speak, as long as you understand that at some point, Akane will be as much of a student as you are."

She felt her sisters' shocked expressions at her back, but missed the one from Agatha. Tendo Nabiki, doing anything pro bono, was almost unheard of.

"As for you, dear sister," she then said, as she turned to face Kasumi, "I have a few errands to run right now, but when I get back, I would appreciate a little of the emergency sake you keep in the kitchen, and I do not want to hear any complaints about it. With the day I'm about to have, I think I deserve to get drunk enough to try to forget it!" She then got up, and marched out to the front door, leaving Akane and Agatha to look in shock at Kasumi, who heavily blushed and hurried away, muttering something about traitors.

Conan and Ai, on the other hand, couldn't help but laugh. It seemed that they would have to come to Nerima a lot more than they originally planned on; this was too much fun to pass up on!

* * *

I apologize for the delay, but I have had several things on my mind, including how I'm going to top this! Please do not forget that I am a college student, and that grades come first. Also, my muse has been rather fickle of late, and I had to practically whip her into submission just to get this out! Mind you, she did seem to be enjoying it near the end, so I will not make any promises for better update frequency. Knowing her, she will be giving me much trouble and grief for the foreseeable future.

I would also like to take this time to apologize to several people who were interested in several of my story ideas. There are a few that I will write no matter what, but I will also be advertising a few to be given away so that someone else can do something with them. Rather than give me more ideas for said ficlets, she has instead been spreading out into several other genres including Naruto, Evangelion, and Harry Potter. More on that later.

Finally, I used to be rather deep in the advisement of a certain Ranma/Evangelion crossover. However, I wanted to take more of a backseat role to it, and he has since lost interest in it. As my muse has finally got me writing, I have decided to take it upon myself to repost and finish it with his blessing. Therefore, you may expect Shinji Saotome: Final Judgement Mk II out soon!

As for remarks to reviewers, I'd like to apologize to any readers who did not get a reply back when they might have expected an answer to their questions. Please understand that I have a life, and there are grades attached to said life. If I don't want that life to end, I need to try and spend some time keeping it alive. Please do not take offence. I will restate my promise though: As long as I am physically or mentally able, I will be here. I will not give up on any project without a worthy reason. However, I do not look on all of my story ideas as projects; instead, they are ideas that my muse was rather taken with. I will send more information later.


	5. Chapter 5

I have returned! Let the readers rejoice!

I have just recently finished this chapter, and though I need a beta (any volunteers may prove their capabilities by sending me a revised version of this chapter to repost later; bonus points to those who edit and send revised versions of the last four chapters), I have decided to post this as proof that I am still alive . . . and moderately insane!

It took me two weeks to get this chapter together. I have been having issues with trying to get this out, as Nerima still seemed to be missing something . . . and then I found it, like a spark of inspiration in the darkness of the night! This came to me two weeks ago, and I have fought tooth and nail to get it organized into a decent chapter.

So, I hope you enjoy this one, from a guy who is so poor, dirt has more monetary value than what is in his pockets. Heck, dirt probably owns more than I do right now as well . . .

Oh, and any flames will be put to good use. My mother seems to have this thing about the temperature, and how it has to be ten degrees above for her than where it is for us. Therefore, the AC is always on low, and the rest of us are finding new ways to keep warm during the summer . . .

Oh, and before I forget, I have a steadily expanding forum that I have dedicated for my story ideas, and those ideas that have been donated to me. For those who have donated, fear not. I will get to them soon . . .

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Agatha was quivering in fear.

It wasn't the fact that she was still at the Tendo Dojo. No, she had long since grown comfortable enough with her act so that she would not be caught. Even Nabiki, the most observant and cunning of the Nerima Wrecking Crew, was fooled, and she was the one that coined that name by manipulating some of Ranma's fights so that they'd take out condemned buildings and such.

She never knew that Ranma knew this, but he did pay attention to how the bills were being paid, even if he could only contribute to them indirectly.

What terrified her was that the members of the NWC were coming here, and they had been asked to stay to testify on what was going on.

Nabiki had gone out to send a few messages to those who needed to hear the news in person, but as she was persona non grata in the Neko Hanten, she decided it was best to have some of the others around, in case Shampoo went at it again. Ran and the others, on the other hand, were the messengers, and could bring new wait to this through Ran's experiences with her father and with Shinichi.

Conan figured into this on Mouri Kogoro's bill, but no one needed to know this.

Conan and Ai were doing their best to keep her cool, but Agatha was pale with fright when Nabiki came back and announced the conference. In fact, it wasn't until they managed to pull her over to where Akane, Nabiki, and Ran were trying to organize and decipher the martial arts scrolls.

Akane, even when she was in abject denial on her feelings for Ranma, considered herself an expert 'Ranma Watcher', so she was able to explain most of them. However, Agatha could and did stutter out some rather childish explanations for them (which were perfect, as that was exactly how Ranma would have normally explained them).

To cover for this extraordinary knowledge, she referenced Ranma-nii-san several times, and once she changed it over to her doctor, when a technique involving pressure points was mentioned. This, combined with her childish stutter, covered for all of it.

After a bit of time, the small group from the Beika Ward noted a knocking at the front door. Agatha, Nabiki and Akane were only slightly curious, as many of the people coming were of the type to walk right in without announcing themselves, but only Kasumi went to the door. However, when they heard a sudden, startled gasp of "Oh my!" from Kasumi, all three of them leapt to their feet to check things out, with Ran, Conan, and Ai at their heels and Sonoko, who had been dozing off in a corner, trailing behind them.

They rushed into the foyer to find Kasumi, staring wide-eyed and mouth agape at Doctor Tofu Ono, who was at the front door. Kasumi did not have the self control to keep her 'Mask of the Housewife' up at this point, so this could have explained some of the shock value at this scene. However, of the group that entered Nerima, only Agatha knew that what was really shocking was that, other than a slight twitch in his fingers, he was almost perfectly composed.

"Well hello, Akane-chan, Nabiki-chan! I apologize for my abrupt departure some months ago; I had decided to go on a rather therapeutic vacation, as I needed to take care of some things. Then I received word that my father had passed on, so I had to arrange to take care of my father's affairs, which included his office in Beika. When I heard that a favorite patient of mine was coming this way, I realized that it was past time I return for a visit."

He then noticed Akane's cast, and then took a more thorough look at the three girls, taking particular care with examining Kasumi. "I say, are you feeling OK, Kasumi-chan? You don't look too well." He then stepped over to Akane, and, with speed that startled everyone but Agatha, he struck several pressure points on her shoulder and upper arm, "That should speed up the healing pressure by a week and a half, now, would someone please tell me what has happened since I left?"

All three Tendo girls stood there in quiet shock, which was only broken when a red blur slammed into Tofu, making him take a step back.

"Doctor Tofu!"

"Why hello there Agatha-chan! I had a feeling that you'd be around here somewhere the moment you told me about Mouri-san coming here for more martial arts training; the Tendo Dojo was always considered to be the best Dojo in Nerima. However, I could have sworn that you'd have left for home by now. Would you mind telling me what has happened here?"

As Agatha lead Tofu into the main room, the three Tendo girls looked at each other for a beat, and then, as one, followed after them. After another moment, Ran, Sonoko, Ai, and Conan followed after them.

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Agatha managed to calm herself down, as Tofu was one of the few martial artists in the area who she, as Ranma, would not be able to win against in a fight. In fact, among the rest of the NWC, only Konatsu, master kunoichi and known cross-dresser, would be even more of a threat. Even then, the older man held knowledge that dwarfed even Cologne's considerable repertoire.

By the time the Tendo sisters finally managed to gain control over themselves, Agatha had managed to give Tofu an extensive summary of what they had learned to Tofu, who did not look happy. The fact that he was truly pissed off was proven when Genma and Soun stumbled back into the room, still punch drunk. When what Tofu later named the atten no mukaezake (Hair of the dog pressure points) was applied to the idiot duo, they shrieked as if a ton of ice had been dropped onto their heads, and collapsed. Kasumi gave a slight shriek herself, but calmed down once Tofu explained that what he did was merely speeding up the rate in which one digested alcohol.

Five minutes later, as the two stumbled to their feet, foggy headed but quite sober, Konatsu and Ukyo entered the house. If anything, Ukyo looked almost as bad as Akane did before, without the broken arm. The fact that she still had life in her eyes was only due to Nabiki's message. Konatsu, on the other hand, was as cute as ever in her feminine style kimono. In fact, Agatha had to stifle a giggle when both Ran and Sonoko complimented her on it, and then took the cross-dresser to the side for some girl talk.

Five minutes later, Saotome Nodoka arrived. As the Tendos greeted her, Agatha resumed her customary place behind Conan, and stared fiercely at the older redhead. However, Conan looked almost thoughtful, as his keen eyes scoured the woman, observing her. As the woman continued to ask if there was any word of her 'manly' son, they widened slightly, and a smirk appeared on the black haired boy's face.

Finally, nearly ten minutes later, a crashing sound was heard from the front of the house, followed by a loud, "Ni hao!" Several things happened immediately after that.

First, Akane paled in terror, and clutched her broken arm to her chest.

Almost simultaneously, Konatsu appeared in front of her, kodachi in hand; ready to defend her if necessary. Ukyo joined him, hefting her giant Spatula in one hand.

Noticing how Akane was reacting, Agatha darted over to sit in her lap, hoping to at least try to comfort her fiancé, as she knew that she could do nothing to defend her. Conan and Ai followed her, standing just behind Ukyo and Konatsu and in front of Akane and Agatha.

Noticing the reactions of everyone else, Ran immediately joined them. Even if some of the stuff she had heard about the martial artists of Nerima was exaggerated, she knew that she was still out of her league. Still, she would not stand down if it came down to a fight.

As Shampoo entered the room, she noticed the clustered group of fighters, and flashed a superior, haughty smirk, which turned into a frown as she noticed the two new girls in the room. However, even as she opened her mouth to say something, and as both Konatsu and Ukyo tensed, ready for a fight, she felt her body stiffen, and then slowly rock back to fall, stiff as a board.

The assembled fighters stared at her, and then slowly swung their line of sights to Tofu, who was holding several acupuncture needles. They then turned back to Shampoo, who had several of the needles sticking out of various points.

A shout of outrage was heard as Mousse and Cologne entered the room, but that was stifled when Konatsu flickered into being behind him, kodachi at his throat and a kunai at his groin. Cologne, on the other hand, stared at Tofu, and then flicked her eyes toward a needle that had missed hitting her by a hair.

"I wasn't aiming for you, Elder Cologne. However, if you dare harm anyone in this house, then the next one will be," Tofu growled in a tone devoid of any warmth.

Said Elder narrowed her eyes, "Was that a threat, male?"

"No. It was a promise. And even if I lose, the fact that I have taken something precious from you will be victory enough for me."

"Now what is that supposed to mean?"

Tofu gave a smirk that reminded all present Nerimans of Ranma, "Did you know that if a needle is manipulated in the right way at certain points, it can cause a woman to lose the ability to bear children for the rest of her life? The fact that one of these points, if struck normally along with several other points, can also cause full body paralysis is an added bonus."

Cologne paled, and then growled out, "You wouldn't! You don't have it in you . . . "

"Your grandchild has created pain in the lives of three women who are very important to me. Give me a reason, and I'll do it in a heartbeat!"

The Amazon Elder and the acupuncture specialist stared at each other for what seemed like hours, until a small voice entered into the equation.

"You'd lose."

Everyone turned to look at Agatha, who was staring daggers at the old woman. Both Conan and Ai froze up at this, but both noted that there was no sign of recognition from the old ghoul.

Cologne, on the other hand, was both irritated and intrigued. The child was positive that she would not win; there was no doubt of that. Yet, her ki reserves were abnormally high for a child her age. She had much potential, but she could not let this insult go, "And what, pray tell, would you know about this, young one?"

Ai and Conan were internally panicking; this was not going according to plan, but neither really knew much about Agatha's battle instincts. While most fighters, in the heat of anger, would slip up and make stupid mistakes, Ranma became ruthless when enraged. It was one of the few reasons he had managed to survive and win against Saffron. And ever since Agatha learned about the art of diplomacy, she had been waiting to put it into action, Saotome-style!

"Ranma-nii-chan once told me," she said, voice level and emotionless, "that there were only two martial artists who he truly respected for both who they were and how they fought. He once told me that they were the only people who he truly would not be able to beat. Tofu-sensei is one of them, and you are definitely not the other!"

As Cologne narrowed her eyes at the girl, Akane wrapped her good arm protectively around the little redhead. "Really . . . so tell me then, who is the other?"

"That would be me."

Everyone but Agatha jumped at the sound of Konatsu's quiet voice. "You? Don't make me laugh!" The old woman cackled. Agatha's retort, however, silenced her immediately.

"Of the many people that Ranma-nee-chan fought, she never managed to beat Konatsu. They may have fought only once, but it was not over some ridiculous claim that he had over one of his Ranma-nee's fiancés, and Ranma never truly beat him." Both Ran and Sonoko's jaws dropped as they realized exactly what gender Konatsu belonged in. "In fact, nii-chan was positive that even in that fight, Konatsu was holding back, even when nii-chan was going all out!"

Cologne raised an eyebrow at this, but froze when she felt the faint whisper in her ear. "There are two primary parts to my kunoichi art: the art of seduction," the voice, once hazy and haunting, suddenly grew ice cold, "and the art of assassination."

Cologne whirled around quicker than the eye could follow to find Konatsu still standing behind Mousse. The bishounen winked at her, and then casually pressed her kodachi to Mousse's neck to the point where a slight trickle of blood ran down the edge of the blade. He then removed the blades from where they were, stepped casually in front of Mousse, and then gracefully walked back towards the others, flicking the blood on the blade onto the paralyzed Shampoo. Mousse immediately fainted when he realized how close he had come to death.

Tofu, on the other hand, did not relax at all. "Before we begin this meeting, I want your oath as an Elder of the Chinese Amazons that you will not harm anyone in this house, nor will you harm any of the delegation from Beika."

Cologne narrowed her eyes. "Do not presume to think that you can tell me what to do, male."

"If you do not swear, than we have no reason to share the information pertaining to Ranma-kun. Without it, you will be stumbling in the dark, and may even bring harm to you and yours, as well as me and mine. Swear your oath, Elder, or else."

Silence reigned supreme for what seemed like forever, and then finally, Cologne said, "By the Goddesses Athena and Artemis, I swear that I will not harm, either directly or indirectly, anyone in this house, nor will I harm, directly or indirectly, anyone from Beika Ward. So shall it be."

When Tofu relaxed himself, everyone else did too. This gave Nabiki a chance to speak up. "Alright, why don't we take this into the dojo . . . "

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Everyone had assembled properly. Unlike the main house, the dojo was in a state of moderate disrepair. It was all Agatha could do to keep herself from openly crying. The only reason her distress wasn't noticed by most of the NWC was that they thought that the shock of staring down Cologne was hitting the apparently shy girl. Ai was next to her, trying to keep her calm while quietly berating her for nearly breaking her cover.

Conan, on the other hand, never stopped watching Nodoka. He was an expert at watching people, and the way this woman was acting was extremely fascinating.

Finally, Nabiki, still unable to draw upon the mask of her Ice Queen persona, got the ball rolling. "Now, as you all may recall, Ranma-kun was knocked out of Nerima ward just over a week ago. Normally, he'd land in Nakano, or Shinjuku if he was in a tail wind. However, because all three of you hit him, he managed to make it all the way over to Chiyoda! Somehow, he managed to survive the landing, only to stumble upon an illegal operation that was underway there. When they tried to eliminate him, several undercover investigators managed to rescue him."

"Get to point, Mercenary Girl!" Shampoo haughtily snapped, earning herself several nasty looks. "Where is Airen?"

"That idiot boy better come back! We still must join the families and give me my retireme- I mean give our art its future!"

"I do not know."

Chaos reigned for a moment, until Nabiki managed to shout for order, "Ranma's face is known to these people, and they have been known for their assassination jobs. Odds are, someone is going to research who he is, and find out about us. The less we know about where he is, the better off all of us will be. He has also requested that we not go looking for him, as finding him could put us all at risk."

"Pah! Shampoo Chinese Amazon! Shampoo not afraid of criminal gang!"

"Stand down!" Shampoo jerked back in shock at her great grandmother's order. "We may have the speed and power necessary to dodge close range bullets, but unlike many of the other Elders, I have taken notice of what the outside world has beyond that. We cannot dodge what we cannot see coming, and I'd rather not risk drawing attention to our tribe."

Soun was also about to say something, but Genma cut him off. "The boy can take care of himself, Old Friend. He'll be back." For once, the Panda's survival instincts rang in his favor.

Ukyo's shoulders slumped, but smiled when Akane grasped one of them with her good hand. It was one of those things that Ranma always wondered about the two of them. Both were rivals when it came to him, but whenever he wasn't involved, both girls were almost best friends! It was just . . . weird.

It was Nodoka, though, that took the news hardest though. The broken look on her face shot through Agatha's heart like an arrow. However, the look soon disappeared, leaving the woman with a closed off look. Once that happened, Agatha blinked and discovered that she had taken all of this in within seconds after the conversation ended. If it wasn't for the fact that she was looking at Nodoka's face in the first place, she wouldn't have even noticed the look of despair on her face.

She wasn't the only one to notice this, and Ai couldn't help but give Conan an odd look as he elbowed her lightly and motioned for her to cut off the burning stare that still hadn't let up.

Finally, the NWC settled down. Shampoo made a point to flounce around like a dominant alley cat, so that the Beika girls 'knew their places', but Conan, Ai, and Agatha made a point to ruin it with a group redeye that had Cologne having to tackle her heir, as Tofu did not look happy with them.

She may not like most males, but when one knows how to sterilize a female with a well placed needle, it pays not to get on his bad side.

Ukyo, on the other hand, was introduced properly to both Sonoko and Ran, and they started to become great friends. After a few minutes where both Nerima girls had to explain why Konatsu cross dressed (he was raised that way), the feminine male kunoichi joined them.

Both Soun and Genma went off to drink their sorrows away and plot for Ranma's return. In truth, the panda wasn't truly planning on just waiting for that to happen, but when dealing with men with long range guns, it was always best to step into things carefully, so as not to ruin his retirement. . . er, that is, so as not to ruin the families.

Nabiki went into the kitchen with Kasumi, and didn't come out again. When Agatha went to check on them, she found both girls sharing a sake bottle between them. From what she could tell, Kasumi had always had this in the kitchen, and would often take a sip or two when something extremely chaotic happened in the family (locked curses, angry dragon princes, magic mushrooms, new fiancé claim, etc.).

Needless to say, Agatha was extremely surprised and a bit ashamed about this turn of events. As Ranma, he never knew how much some of the things that happened to him affected other people.

This was a nasty wake up call to the unlucky martial artist.

However, while she was checking up on the two older Tendo sisters, he never noticed Nodoka slipping out of the house, or Conan slipping out right after her . . .

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"Why do you do it?"

Nodoka stopped, surprised, and then turned around to stare at the apparently young black haired boy. "Pardon? I'm not sure I know what you are talking about."

Conan cocked his head to the side, "It's the way you were acting in there. Every time you referenced how manly your son was, or if he was manly enough, you were looking at your husband. Are you trying to scare him?"

The redheaded Saotome matriarch blinked, "How did you . . . no, never mind. I think . . . yes, aren't you one of those Shounen Tantei kids I've read about?"

It was Conan's turn to blink this time. He had no idea those articles were that well read. "Um, yeah! My name is Edogawa Conan, Detective!"

Nodoka nodded slowly, and then stared at the boy for a bit, making him fidget. Finally, she asked, "How much of my family's story have you heard?"

"I heard that you once had Ranma and the panda sign a Seppuku pledge back when he was a kid."

Nodoka winced at that remark. "Yes . . . you see, I was kind of hoping that would have changed Genma's mind in taking my son away from me. We had been arranged to be wed when I was young, and I had been raised on tales about Samurai and honor. My family has always had strict guidelines when it came to honor. Then they gave me away to HIM . . . "

The sudden anger and hatred on her face surprised Conan, who had seen that look before . . .

"I lived with that man for over a year when I finally realized what my parents had done to me. He was a louse, always thinking with his stomach, and only taking what he wanted, both from me and from what we had. When I tried to get him to stop drinking, stuff around the house would disappear and he'd still come home drunk. I tried to talk to him, and he blew me off! It wasn't until Ranma was born that I finally found a measure of happiness, and then he took that away from me."

The rage seemed to drain out of Nodoka, as she continued. "For over ten years, I have lived on my own. Other than a modest stipend from my clan, I have lived without any help from my parents. I had a friend in Tendo Kimiko, but then she passed on, and I was all alone. Could you blame me that, when I heard that Genma was back in town, that I decided to take my pound of flesh from that man from making him fear me like he feared my mother and father?"

Conan was surprised at this, but it wasn't bad enough to make him freeze up. Compared to what other people did in situations like this, Nodoka was definitely not a criminal. "But what about Ranma? Have you ever thought that with a curse like his, he'd feel ashamed and afraid? That if he did anything that could be considered to be 'unmanly', that you'd . . . "

"I'D NEVER!" Nodoka shrieked. "That boy is the only good thing to ever enter my life! Thinking of him was the only thing that has ever kept me sane! I . . . I . . ." Suddenly, flashes of memory assaulted the woman, as she recalled how her son would act around her sometime. Her face paled in horror at what she had done.

Conan didn't know what was going on, but before he could say anything, they were interrupted. "He loves you, you know?"

Both Nodoka and Conan turned around to find Ai standing behind them. "I've heard a lot of things about Ranma from Ai, and one of the things he would always talk about with her was you. Sometimes, you'd worry him, and he did fear that one day, you'd force him to commit to that awful Seppuku pact, but he loves you all the same."

Only Conan would know the truth in those words, that Ai had heard it all from Ranma herself, before the Agatha personality had even been finalized. Still, that was enough for Nodoka, who fell to her knees with a mighty sob and began weeping in shame and remorse.

Tentatively, both children moved closer to the woman, wondering if there was something they could do to ease her pain. Suddenly, Nodoka lunged at Ai, surprising both of them when she wrapped the small blonde in a hug and began weeping into her shoulder.

Ai froze. She never got to know her parents, and her sister raised her to be independent to survive. Intimate contact as simple as a hug was not unheard of in her life, but it still felt foreign to her. However, once she felt Conan come over to rub Nodoka's back in comfort, she managed to let herself relax.

Conan was the only person who she truly felt safe with . . . well, him and Agatha now. They were the family she wished she had, and sometimes . . . sometimes she felt just a tiny bit jealous of Ran. Even then, she couldn't feel jealous for long, as Ran was the kind of big sister that reminded her of her own.

It was hard to feel jealous of someone who would step in front of a bullet for her, after all. It was so much like Akemi-nee-chan . . .

As the rest of the NWC went back to their lives, and four girls (and a cross-dresser) bonded to each other, they stood there, letting a woman who had suffered from loneliness and neglect cry herself out.

And as they did this, a recording device that Conan had turned on before confronting Nodoka continued to roll . . .

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NEXT UP: Agatha reintroduces herself to Saotome Nodoka, a lost boy stumbles his way into Beika, and we may have are first big case. That and more (or less; come on, I deal with a fickle muse with the attention span of Mihoshi here!), coming soon!


	6. Chapter 6

Hi again. Sorry for the delay, but I've had to deal with life in general, and the fact that NOBODY SEEMS TO BE HIRING!

Still, I finally got a call back . . . meaning that I will soon have more in my account than seventeen cents . . .

Please, no suing over this. I don't want more debt, and I own nothing to pay it off with.

If Ai seems to be out of character here, I apologize. Having to deal with an out of whack Agatha would be stressing for anyone, and having to deal with the redhead's emotions would set off her own. I'm just trying to bring her out of her shell a bit, and Agatha is exceeding my expectations with it.

Plus, we're talking about a young woman in a little girl's body, whose mother and father died early on. Wouldn't you want a mother figure too?

As for my other stories, please be patient. Saotome Shinji is hinging on me finishing my research. I'm trying to set a steady pace to ease everyone into things, and I will put in TS's chapters as I catch up. Sorry.

Flames will be put to work. Our energy bill is high enough, so a little bit of free heat for the stove would be useful.

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Agatha sighed.

It had been over a week since they'd been back to Nerima, and things were definitely going faster. Conan and Ai had taken her aside after the trip and grilled her on what she needed to work on, as well as why she should warn them before going off on people like Cologne like that. Conan also took some time running him through various kid shows that other kids their apparent ages would watch.

What surprised both of them was how quickly the young redhead was soaking it up. That is, up until she explained how this was her first real experience in plain old TV watching. Genma had always preached that TV was for sissies, and though, as a kid, Ranma had heard of several shows that interested him, he had never once seen them. Soon, Agatha was being introduced to dozens of different shows.

She especially took a liking to Masked Yaiba and Dragonball Z, where fighting and heroics were plentiful. Several other favorites included Naruto, Bleach, and surprisingly, old reruns of Sailor Moon. When asked later, Agatha replied that she kind of empathized with Usagi, who seemed to be getting swept into the youma hunting business against her will.

She would be later teased for blushing whenever Rei or Ami henshined into their senshi forms. The truth was that Ami looked remarkably like Akane, while Rei was the closest to her personality-wise. It would only get worse once the Outer Senshi got involved.

However, Agatha's intensive week of personality training soon came to an end when Conan insisted on following Ran around for one reason or another. The dilemma was that Agatha, while enjoying the TV marathon, was also in need of some outside activity, so she and Ai ended up getting dragged along as well.

"So, we're following your girlfriend so that you see what she is doing?" Agatha quietly sniped at her companion.

Conan blushed and stuttered. Since seeing the emotional clusterfuck at Nerima, he had gotten to thinking of Ran more, and was ready to admit his feelings for her at the next available moment. However, he had obviously not gotten to that point yet. "I-it's nothing . . . I just . . . "

Ai rolled her eyes. Normally, she'd be back at base, working on something, but Agatha was still nervous about being out and about, and needed the extra support.

Suddenly, they were surprised from behind by a female's voice, "Oh, hey. What are you three doing here?"

Conan backed up and started stammering something, but Ai just kept her cool. Agatha, on the other hand, prepared for her entrance back into 'Hinata-mode' as she called it.

She really did empathize with the fictional girl, but still, did she really have to stutter so much?

"Are your parents in the class here?" the employee asked, getting Ran's attention inside. Finally, the girl just picked up Conan, forcing both Ai and Agatha to follow along.

Both Ran and Sonoko (who had dragged their companion along for the class), were surprised to see the three of them.

"Co-Conan? What are you guys doing here?" Ran asked.

"You didn't follow us, did you?" Sonoko added, suspicious.

Conan started blustering, "Oh, I was asked by Kogoro-ojii-san to check in with you, and . . . "

"That's weird," Ran said quietly, "Didn't he come by last week to see what was going on?"

Conan again started stuttering, thrown for a loop, when Sonoko snapped her fingers, "Oh, I see!" She then knelt down closer to the three apparent children. "You were asked to come here by Shinichi!"

"Wh-wha?" Conan stammered.

"This kid was probably asked by Shinichi to check on us!" Sonoko said, rubbing her chin, " . . . To see if Ran was cheating on him!"

"Ch-Cheating!" Ran squeaked out, stunned.

Conan continued to stammer, but was interrupted, "Th-that's silly!" Both older girls turned to Agatha, who squeaked and hid behind Ai, causing the blonde to blush slightly. "Sh-Shinichi-nii-san asked us wh-what you were d-d-doing, and we th-thought we'd come a-and see ourselves."

Sonoko blinked at this, but Ran couldn't help but ask, "Shinichi-nii-san?"

Agatha nodded shyly, "Ranma-nee made him sound s-so cool l-last time I was a-allowed to s-speak with him through Conan-kun, so I-I . . ."

Agatha trailed off, but Ran couldn't help but giggle and give the cute redhead a hug. "Ah, how sweet!"

Sonoko couldn't help but roll her eyes at this. She never really understood what Ran saw in kids like these.

"Well, that's fine," the woman who found them, who they later discovered to be Kasama Kikuyo, said, "Why don't you guys make something? That's fine, right master?"

She turned to an older man with a bald head and sideburns, who replied, "Why don't I show them an example!"

Soon, the master, named Mino Muneyuki, was teaching them how to handle pottery. Conan seemed to know a bit from a previous case he was involved in, but Ai and Agatha had no idea what they were doing.

Still, Agatha was having the time of her life!

During her life as Ranma, there were very few occasions where she was allowed to do arts and crafts. Occasionally, someone would try and teach him how to make something, but every time, Genma would swoop in and steal everything from the young martial artist to be. After a while, Ranma stopped trying.

However, there were no greedy pandas here, and even better, Mino-san had promised that they'd be able to keep what they made!

So it was that Agatha didn't notice what everyone else was talking about, and only barely noted the sense of shock she sensed somewhere in the room (it wasn't enough to cause worry to her). She did, however, note when Mino Motoo, the sensei's son in law, came by.

He stopped to talk a bit, but he left, leaving the three apparent kids and the two teenage girls to their work. As he left, Agatha noted that something was agitating her friends, but she was soon back to her work.

However, this time she was more aware of what was going on, so when Ran, trying to keep Sonoko from seeing her cup, accidentally dropped it, she was ready to catch it. Noting that there was a crashing sound anyways, she immediately set the cup back on the table and ran towards it, forcing both Conan and Ai to follow. Ran also joined them after warning Sonoko not to peek at her cup.

When they found the room where the older Mino-san had dropped a dish, Ran, Ai, and the other customers who had followed them relaxed, but both Conan and Agatha were on edge. She couldn't help but feel like something was wrong here, but she couldn't tell what. There was a negative sense here . . . a bad feeling, but she had no idea how to identify it.

Later on, when they were looking for Motoo, she was walking with Ran, Conan, the sensei, and the employee who had first discovered them. As they stepped into the locker room, Agatha again felt the negative pressure she had felt before. As the old man started explaining how he had checked the lockers earlier, she scanned the room. When Ran pointed out the bit of cloth sticking out of one locker, she jumped and moved towards it. As Conan inspected the cloth and identified it as the corner of a potter's apron, she felt the atmosphere deepen, and was unsure how to handle it.

When the old Sensei opened it, and Motoo-san fell out, however, she couldn't help but scream. As the corpse fell out right in front of her, she felt the pressure spike, and the room spun around her. She couldn't think . . . she couldn't see . . . she couldn't . . .

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Agatha came to just outside the building, Ai kneeling over her. When she reached up to rub her eyes, she found tears, still falling from her eyes. As Ai leaned closer, trying to figure out what was wrong, Agatha lunged forward and grabbed onto her, sobbing into her shoulder.

Ai's mind spun around in circles. Agatha was not the type of person to cry like this, or to faint, yet she did so right in front of the corpse of Motoo-san. She thought over to Conan and herself, and started wondering, '_Wait, Conan and I have had plenty of experience dealing with death before, but surely . . ._'

She shook her head crossly at this thread, but she thought deeper into it. Sure, Ayumi, Mitsuhiko, and Genta had dealt with cases like this before, but . . . wait, didn't Ayumi's grandmother die about a year ago? The other two boys had also attended funerals for aunts and uncles in the past as well.

'_Has Ranma ever had to deal with death?_' she couldn't help but ask herself.

She also thought back to a conversation she had overheard Ran and Akane talking about with Doctor Tofu. He had said something about high end martial artists being able to sense the energy around them. '_Could someone dying impact the surrounding area? Could a corpse still emit some kind of empathic signal?_'

They sat there, Ai holding the ragged redhead, even as the cops entered the building, and kept doing so until Conan walked out, sighing. "Done. The old man did it."

Ai nodded quietly, but Agatha's quiet, broken voice warbled up from her shoulder, "Why?"

Conan blinked as the redhead turned her gaze upon him, "Why would he . . . how could he do such a thing?" she sobbed.

Conan sighed again, "Apparently, he was trying to avenge his daughter; Motoo-san apparently was trying to bilk money from the old man by marrying his daughter, and was seeing someone on the side."

Agatha shook her head furiously, "But that makes no sense! Why not hit him, or beat him up or something? He didn't have to k- . . . to ki-"

The small redhead couldn't say the word; she kept choking up every time. Still Conan got what she was saying. As he knelt down and wrapped the sobbing girl in a hug (while also hugging Ai, who was starting to blush at all this contact), he replied, "Sometimes, grief and hatred make people do stupid things . . . things that aren't right in any situation. That's why we have detectives. That's why I do what I do- so that even when these people do these kinds of things, they can also get what they deserve. So that the dead, even if they did remotely deserve it, can get some peace."

By the time Ran and Sonoko managed to get out of the building, Agatha was able to keep her emotions under control. Still, both Ai and Conan knew that there was still a lot going through their companion's head.

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Later that night, Agatha was sitting in her room. She was feeling shell-shocked at the events of the day.

When Genma had taken Ranma around Japan, he insisted on area awareness in all things, but he never mentioned what Ranma was supposed to be looking for. Eventually Ranma had learned to pay attention to the motions of the wind, the shadows, and other things that would warn him if trouble was coming, but that was it.

Yet Conan could take it to a different level. After talking to the shrunken detective, Agatha realized that she was practically blind compared to him. Conan could solve a mystery just by staring at a room, and then analyzing the stories of the suspects. Conan . . . Conan was a genius!

Agatha sat there, mulling it over. Conan was good at so many things . . . what exactly was she good at? As Ranma, she was a master of anything martial arts, but as Agatha . . . OK, so she was becoming better at watching what she was saying and could use it to goad people into certain reactions now, but that was it. Akane was decent at martial arts, but also had a thriving social life, and was a good student. As Ranma, she had no social skills to speak of, and she had pitiful grades.

Like this . . . weak like this . . . was she just being dead weight to Conan and Ai?

When someone knocked at the door, she was surprised to find Doctor Tofu standing in front of it. "Hey, Ranma-kun, is it alright if I come in?"

Agatha relaxed slightly. "S-sure, and its Agatha now."

Tofu chuckled, "Maybe, but you'll always be Ranma-kun, best fighter in Nerima, to me."

The redhead blushed, "Thanks, Doc."

"Don't mention it. Now, I heard that you had a rough day today. Care to talk about it?"

As the Doctor gently coaxed the small girl to talk about her experiences, he couldn't help but take note on how shaky her emotional control was. As she was now, her ki pathways were too small for the amazing stuff Ranma could have pulled off, and the change in it had disrupted her control to the point where she even had difficulty using the Soul of Ice. However, of more interest was the feeling she had described to him.

"Remarkable . . . Ranma, this may sound a bit off topic, but before today, have you ever had to deal with death . . . been to a funeral, hung around a dying person, anything like that?"

Agatha's eyes crossed momentarily, "Well . . . no, not that I can think of . . . Pops always had a habit of having us pick up and leave on short notice sometimes . . . maybe it had something to do with it?"

Tofu grimaced. He had heard about Genma's outstanding police record, so hanging around a dead body was likely to involve the cops. It would make sense that the Old Panda would avoid that as much as possible.

"Ranma, what you are describing is something that has taken many years to work out . . . in fact, it took me three and a half years to get even close to the level you are describing . . . tell me, Ranma-kun, what do you think happens to a person's ki when they die?"

Agatha flinched slightly, but she answered the question, "Well . . . I guess it would disappear."

"That's technically correct, though 'disappear' is not the best word to describe it . . . you may want to ask Haibara-san more about this if you want, but it's a proven fact that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only turned into another form. When a person dies, their ki . . . their life energy, is released into the area around him or her, and becomes part of the surrounding chi, or natural energy."

His redheaded friend blinked at this, "Wait . . . so what you are saying is . . . I sensed chi? But . . . only masters are said to be able to do that, and even then, it's rare."

"Ah, but it's also a special trait of my school."

Agatha stared wide-eyed at Tofu, "YOU can do it? How?"

"It's a necessary skill for what I do. Certain afflictions involve chi in a person's ki, and certain moxibustion techniques use the chi in the area to do what they do. What's remarkable is how you've seemed to stumble onto how to train for this skill."

As Agatha looked at him curiously, he chuckled, "When my father was teaching me this technique, he purposefully cut off my ability to use ki for several months. By that time, I could only access the barest of sensations around me, and it took me years to discover exactly what I was feeling whenever I was around a dead or dying patient."

Agatha let that sink in for a minute or two, and then, hesitantly asked, "So that dark feeling . . . that pressure . . . was the feeling of death?"

"It's . . . kind of like that," Tofu hedged, "Ranma, you do know how emotions can be reflected in one's ki, right?"

Agatha nodded, "Yeah, it's the basis of my Moko Takabisha, or Ryouga's Shi Shi Hokudan. What about it?"

"What kind of emotions do you think a person may be feeling if they are being attacked, or violently killed?"

It struck Agatha, "Wait, so I was not just sensing that that guy was dead, but that he was murdered?"

"That's correct. I've had to sense that feeling on certain occasions, though if Conan seems to attract these mysteries like he usually does, you may find it more than I have."

The girl beside him shuddered in remembrance. That feeling was so dark, so . . . repressing. "Is there . . . is there a way to control it?"

"There is, but it will take a lot of meditation. In short, you have been able to sense the change of an area's chi, but you have yet to truly sense it on a regular basis. To gain control over this ability, you need to sense it all. The life around you, the energy that inhabits every facet of nature, even the ki within other people. You may find it easier than I did, as my art does not involve the casual manipulation of my internal ki, but at the same time, maybe it's a good thing that you cannot use it like you used to."

"How come?"

Tofu sighed, "The use of emotions to use your ki is ingenious, but it also carries some nasty side effects. Namely, in order to boost your power, you would need to become more confident. Overconfidence can lead to cockiness, which could also lead you to . . . "

"Overlooking something that could get me killed!" Agatha gasped. "You're right! . . . but then, Ryouga uses depression, and depression . . . Kami, he could . . . could . . . "

Agatha lapsed into silence, a curious look on her face. "What's wrong, Ranma-kun?"

"I just realized," Agatha said quietly, "whenever Ryouga comes by to challenge me, he always shouts 'Prepare to die' at me. And Mousse and Kuno have often said something about killing me or something like that. Do they really mean it? Do they . . . really want me dead?"

The good doctor nodded. Finally they were getting to a crossroads in Ranma's life. "I can't say for certain about Mousse, but Ryouga seems to be holding a deep grudge against you. Whether that is because he has been using depression too long or that he really truly hates you is beyond me. Kuno, on the other hand, has been declared clinically insane several months ago. The only reason he is still out and not in an asylum is that his family has a lot of influence. I wouldn't put it past him."

"So then . . . do I really have any friends?"

Tofu chuckled, "Why of course you do. I have considered you a friend ever since I met you, when a young redhead came in to get some hot water. Kasumi and Nabiki consider you part of their family, and I know for a fact that Akane has some intense feelings for you. And if that's not enough, I happen to know two people, in the same situation as you are, who consider themselves your friends. In fact, they are listening outside the door right now."

At this, the two of them could hear a small scuffle outside, and when Agatha leapt up to open the door, she found Conan and Ai, getting up off of the floor and glaring at each other.

She couldn't help but giggle, until she realized what she was doing and stopped.

By then, both Conan and Ai were looking at her. Conan put a hand on Agatha's shoulder, "Hey, no matter what, we're here for you, got that? We're your friends."

Ai smirked and followed it up by putting her hand on Agatha's other shoulder.

"And when we get to school, you'll definitely have more friends!" Conan continued.

"Yeah, Ayumi-chan is pretty nice, and isn't that girly, so to speak," Ai added."

"Hey, what about Mitsuhiko and Genta? They're pretty nice too!"

"Oh please, the last thing Agatha needs are those two right now!"

"True, I guess, both would probably start crushing on her the moment they see her."

"W-wait, crushing?" Agatha stammered.

"Yeah, last time I checked, Mitsuhiko has a crush on Ai here!"

"Oh yeah, well Ayumi has a crush on you!"

"Wh-what?"

As he stepped around the trio of arguing youths, Tofu chuckled. Everything was going fine.

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Ai couldn't help but bristle as she walked beside Conan. "Exactly why are we doing this?" she hissed.

In front of them, Agatha was skipping along merrily. She had been on cloud nine ever since Conan told her they were going to drop by her mother's for a bit.

What she didn't know was that Conan was planning on revealing the truth to Saotome Nodoka.

"Look, my parents know about me, and have been able to help keep my cover in the past. Since Agatha may need to prove herself at one point or another, having Nodoka to play Auntie or something like that may be nice. Besides, it's not like we need to tell the Panda or anything."

Ai just sighed, annoyed. Truthfully, she could understand that Agatha needed the extra support, but on the other hand, the less people who knew their secret, the better.

On the flip side, having someone claim their current aliases as relatives would help with the disguise, and that Nabiki was scary smart. If she got enough rest, could she possibly see through them? Would having Nodoka on their side help prevent that?

She had long since lost the burning hatred that she felt for the woman, ever since finding out that her whole personality according to Ranma was an act to punish the Panda, but still, it rankled her that the woman had never thought about how it may affect her son.

Still, Agatha was excited that they were going to see her, even if she hadn't been told the full truth yet.

Speaking of which, when were they going to tell Agatha why they were there?

As they neared the Saotome house, they found Agatha, trying to get herself under control. Conan, however, walked up to her and handed her a tape recorder that he had been carrying around with him, along with a set of headphones. When the redhead gave the boy an odd look, he replied, "I recorded something interesting on there that you may want to hear. Just put on the headphones and press Play."

Agatha continued giving him an odd look, but she did what he said to do. As the recording carried on, the look grew until he was staring wide eyed at her friend, and then clouded into a brief look of horror, and then . . . tears. "You mean . . . she'd never . . . but . . . then why . . . "

Conan shrugged, "People do weird things in the name of revenge. In my experience, people get murdered, but your mom doesn't seem like the type to do that in cold blood. Terrorizing your father by making him fear for his life is tame in comparison. Still, even the best will overlook something. In her case, it was how she was making you feel, every time she brought the pact up."

He then grabbed her hand and started pulling her into the gate. "My parents already know about me, and have helped cover for me in the past. I was thinking that we could also bring your mom into this too."

Agatha gaped, "B-but . . . I thought you didn't want anyone to know about this . . . "

Before Conan could open his mouth, Ai chimed in, "We don't . . . however, the fact of the matter is, there are going to be people who will be able to see through our act. Sometimes, it is better to control who knows and who doesn't, rather than trying to keep the secret from everybody." She then shrugged, "Besides, given enough time and not enough diversion, I get the feeling that Nabiki and that shriveled up old hag may start getting suspicious. Better to have Saotome-san on our side to cover for us, rather than on their side, waiting to poke holes in our story."

"Oh? Are you sure this isn't because of that hug Saotome-san gave you?" Conan teased.

Agatha could only blink in shock as Ai blushed and snapped, "Shut it, Kudo!"

Before the boy detective could reply, the door opened in front of them, revealing a rather disheveled Saotome Nodoka, "Hello, who . . . Edogawa-kun? Haibara-chan? And . . . um, I'm sorry, Agatha . . . "

"Hina-Marple," Ai replied for the said girl, who was gaping worriedly at the older redhead, "Hina-Marple Agatha."

"Oh, I apologize, but I just couldn't recall the name. I wasn't expecting any guests. Um, would you care to come in?" Nodoka smiled embarrassedly, and Agatha was struck by just how lonely it could be for her.

As they entered the building, they were all struck by how clean it was. The floor was practically sparkling, and there wasn't a speck of dust or anything in sight. Before, Ranma wouldn't have noticed much about it, but after the events of that day, when she came face to face with the true nature of death, Agatha was paying more attention. Conan had told her once that you could tell almost everything about a person by what they do, how they dress, and what they say.

The young teenage boy turned little girl would never have heard this saying, but at this point, she would have agreed whole heartedly with the saying, 'Cleanliness is a sign of a wasted life'.

Nodoka had wasted her life trying to wait for him . . . and now this had to happen. Agatha could barely keep herself from weeping in guilt.

When things had finally settled, and Nodoka came back from the kitchen, bringing with her a tray of cookies, Conan cleared his throat, "Um, Saotome-san . . . "

"Oh please, call me Auntie. Saotome-san makes me feel old."

Conan rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, "Right, um, Auntie, I . . . uh . . . "

Ai interrupted him with a sigh and an elbow in the side, "Um, what Conan is trying to say is . . . " She swallowed; this was going against so many instincts to her, but she was starting to get what Tofu had told them about auras, and how emotions were tied into them. The grief that she could feel beside her was worrying. "Um, what we want to know is, what would you do if you could get in touch with your son right now?"

Nodoka blinked, taken aback. "But . . . Ranma is supposed to be in hiding right now, isn't he? I couldn't . . . " Tears leaked down her eyes, "I can't lose him . . . If it means him risking his life to see me . . . I wouldn't . . . "

Agatha let out a strangled sob to see the woman like this, but Conan was quick to try and get her to relax. "No, Auntie, it's not like that! You see," he breathed in slowly, only now realizing how hard this would be, "I . . . "

"Ranma would not be in trouble at all," Ai interrupted, thinking quickly, trying to resolve this, "as long as you were the only one who knew. He's spent most of his life with the Tendos, so to tell them anything would be too risky. The Amazons would probably try and do something stupid in their quest to get him as well. You may be his mother, but the lack of contact for ten years would put the bad guys off track for a bit. There are still risks involved, but as long as you keep quiet and stick to the plan, no one would ever suspect anything."

Nodoka sat there for a bit, opening and closing her mouth in silence, but finally she whispered, "If it wouldn't hurt anything . . . I . . . I would love to."

Agatha rubbed her eyes, trying to ignore the wetness that was leaking from them. Conan, beside her, also did his best to ignore them; the last time he tried to tease the redhead, she gave him a dead-arm that really hurt. She may not have any of the mythical strength of Ranma right now, but she was still scary strong for a kid. "Auntie Saotome . . . " He winced at the disapproving glance the woman gave him, "Auntie Nodoka, I heard about an incident a while back with Ranma, involving some 'Magic Mushrooms' of some kind . . . "

"Yes, I recall Nabiki mentioning something about that when I asked her about his life. It does seem a little unusual, but considering the things that tend to happen around Ranma, it's not unbelievable," Nodoka replied, unsure about this new direction in conversation.

Conan hesitated, unsure how to continue, but Ai yet again interrupted. Conan may be the detective, but this needed the mind of the group scientist, "The Organization that Ranma is trying to take down has numerous resources, including a Science Department designed to research new and undetectable poisons, as well as other things. From what I've heard, Ranma was caught by this group when he landed amongst them, and was doused with an experimental poison that was supposed to kill him."

Nodoka started, grasping the edges of her chair tightly, "S-supposed to . . . what do you mean . . . ?"

"He's OK, but there were some unforeseen side effects that took place after Shinichi and his group rescued them. For one thing, his curse was locked. A cure is being worked on, but for now, he is stuck as a girl."

"Is that all?" The children blinked at the relieved tone of voice Nodoka was using, "I thought for a moment that something was terribly wrong. To be honest, I've been wondering whether I should shred that damned contract myself, or wait for him, so we could do it together." She sighed, "I should have never let Genma write that damn thing in the first place . . . "

Agatha felt a warm feeling of relief bloom inside of her. She had listened to the recording, but hearing it from her mother's mouth was truly comforting.

"Besides, to be honest, I've kind of missed the times we spent together when she was hiding as Ranko," Nodoka sighed wistfully, lost in memories as Agatha was trying to keep herself from choking on a cookie. "I love my son dearly, but . . . there were a couple of things that my mother really wanted to be passed down from daughter to daughter. Damn her hide, but she made me swear an oath on that. I was kind of hoping to pass it on to Ranko at the time, as she was so much like the daughter that I always wanted . . . but then again," she chuckled sardonically, I" guess she was, in some ways, my daughter."

"I'd try and pass them on to whoever married him, but from the looks of things, his chosen fiancé would never be able to learn them . . . bless her soul, but Akane isn't going to learn how to cook any time soon."

Conan chuckled as Agatha turned bright red, blushing both at the insinuation and at how well her mother knew her.

"Still . . . " Nodoka gave the trio a confused look, "how do you three know so much about this? Considering the type of investigation, I doubt Kudo-san would let this much information out, especially to three children such as yourselves."

Conan winced at this; he had a feeling that this might happen, "Well, there was another side effect that was associated with the poison . . . "

"Oh?" Nodoka straitened, somewhat alarmed, "What happened?"

Conan struggled to find the words to explain, but Ai took over again, a weird, weary look in her eyes, "Well, this poison has been used several times before, on several different people. Most of them died not long after being dosed with it, but two others survived with similar side effects. The first one was Kudo Shinichi himself, having stumbled upon two of their agents doing something suspicious. The second ," Ai swallowed nervously, "The second . . . "

"The second was a young woman by the name of Miyano Shiho," Conan interrupted. When she looked over to him, stunned, she found him looking at her, smirking, yet with a kind look in his eyes, "She was born into the organization as an orphan, along with her older sister. When she was old enough, they sent her to school to study chemistry. She stumbled onto the compound by accident, and the Organization used it as their poison. After her sister died trying to get her out of the Organization's control, and she learned exactly what her poison was being used for, she took it herself, hoping to end her life."

Ai was forced to look away, trying to fight the tears that were building in her eyes. Agatha wrapped an arm around her shoulder to comfort her. Ai had always felt somewhat guilty for her actions, and having two of her closest friends comfort her, even after knowing how she was partly responsible for ruining their lives, was comfort in itself.

Nodoka looked on, puzzled by this story and the reactions caused by it. However, she was also starting to notice her surroundings, after realizing how much pain she might have brought her child. She first stared at Conan, noting just how much he looked like a picture she had seen in a newspaper, of the dashing Kudo Shinichi. In fact, without the glasses, he was a spitting image of the teenager . . .

She then glanced at the blonde on the other side of the trio. She couldn't help but remember the analytical look that was in the girl's eyes both earlier today and at the Tendo Dojo earlier. There was also a spark of emotion in there, that seemed almost out of place in a young girl.

She then turned to Agatha. The bright red hair, the same color as Ranma's, was rare in Japan, but it could be that she was part gaijin (foreigner). The girl's entire attitude screamed insecure, exactly the opposite of Ranma's, but . . .

An image of a young redhead girl flickered in her mind; so eager for attention, not wanting to disappoint her 'Auntie' . . . so insecure, unsure about what she was doing . . . who she was.

Things clicked in her mind. Her heart fluttered, and her mind just wanted to freeze up, but the looks in the children's eyes . . . How Agatha was looking at her before . . . how they were looking now, at a young blonde child who was trying to hold back tears.

Both Agatha and Ai were surprised when gentle arms wrapped around them. Ai, overly emotional as she was, could only break down, weeping onto Agatha's shoulder, but Agatha looked upward, into the caring, understanding eyes of Saotome Nodoka, before breaking down herself.

Conan could only watch, smiling at the three females. '_You know, I knew this would be good for Agatha, but it looks like she's not the only one feeling in need of comfort . . . ' _

He then quietly got up, and then went to refill the teapot, having a feeling that it would be needed soon.

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NEXT UP: First day at Teitan Elementary, A new mystery, and another trip to Nerima! Stay tuned!


	7. Chapter 7

Yes, I am back in action! Forgive me for my absence, but shit happens . . . and happens . . . and [sob] happens . . . WAH!

Some would say that Ai is acting very out of character. You'd be right, in a way, but let me explain. Ai is a paranoid, darkened character who feels like she has done so much bad in her life. Throughout the series, she lightens up due to the efforts of Ayumi and Conan, yet the first is a child, unknowing of her friend's circumstances, while the second didn't really trust her at first. She also has issues adjusting to society, as the only life she knew was one the BO allowed her.

Add in Ranma, who has less social skills than her, more issues than her, and is in need of a friend . . . and some psych help. She invests much effort into getting Ranma ready for her 'disguise' as Agatha, allowing for a connection to build. Ranma latches onto it, while Ai doesn't even know it exists until it's too late to distance herself. In the end, we have Agatha, who isn't going to let her first real friend become an emo bas . . .er, bitch (yes, I am ex-Naruto fan-deal with it), and Ai, who is unsuccessfully trying to distance herself from her redheaded companion so she can sulk.

Pretty much, while Ranma/Agatha learns the social graces that she has missed out on due to the training trip, Ai will be learning how to look at the world with a child's eye a bit faster than normal. It also helps that, instead of an oddball detective taking an interest in her safety, which could be contributed as an interest in getting cured sooner or later, she has two protectors, one of which couldn't lie worth shit and who honestly seems to be enjoying his/her time as a child (despite the fact that she's stuck as a girl for this period of time).

I own nothing, and I apologize for any OOCness.

Addendum: I've been sitting on this chapter for about a year, and I apologize for it. Having applied and been accepted into Grad School has given me a passion for writing again . . . but not enough time to do it in. Trust me, having one to four tests every week is not much fun. I apologize again for the delay.

Addendum the second: After continuing this too a point, I ended up stalling out before I could reach a stopping point. However, I soon realized my problem. I am not going to write out every mystery from Detective Conan. This isn't about the mysteries. This is about Ranma/Agatha, growing up and learning more about himself/herself. This is Conan and Agatha, learning that there are more things on heaven and Earth then they ever dreamt of. This is Ran and Akane, leaving their comfort zones and becoming more than they ever believed possible. Any mystery I come up with, I will explain in full, but this isn't about the mysteries-it's about growth and friendship.

Sappy, I know, but I thought it was a point to bring up.

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Agatha was agitated.

Had this been a week ago, there would be nothing to be agitated about. Saotome Nodoka had come into her role as a surrogate mother figure/cover story for the three teens-turned-children, and had even taken to coming down to Beika every other day to check in.

Also taking center stage was Conan and Ai informing the redhead that she had been caught up on all the pop culture that every child should know, and was ready for Teitan Elementary School; in fact, today was her first official day at said school, and to be honest, it wasn't that bad.

In fact, Agatha had learned more history and language skills than she had picked up as Ranma in Furinkan. She had even learned two new kanji symbols that she had never learned of before (owing to the fact that Ranma's lessons in reading were rather scattered and had to be hidden from his father, who believes that reading was women's work).

Lastly, things in Nerima were picking up, with the Chinese Amazons actually behaving themselves. Ran had promised to head down to Nerima every other weekend to try and help out until Akane's arm was fixed. Then they would alternate weekends, with Ran visiting the Tendo Dojo one weekend, and Akane coming over to Kudo Shinichi's backyard on the next weekend (the de-aged detective having offered it up during a call to Ran as his former age).

No, what stressed her out was that a few days ago, Ai had come far too close with the Black Organization, giving her a rather nasty scare. The girl had been moody ever since, which set Agatha off. It was all she could do not to snap at Conan for getting her into that mess, as she was at least intelligent enough to realize that it wasn't his fault.

"Ah, he's so cute!"

At the moment, Agatha, Conan, and Ai were with the other members of Shonen Tantei. Yoshida Ayumi, a blue eyed brunette of the team, had jumped for joy when Dr Agase suggested that they could visit a friend of his and his dog while they were holding a garage sale. The idea had taken root, and the trio had been dragged along for the ride.

Ranma couldn't help but like the girl; she had a sense of child-like innocence that she found refreshing, despite the fact that she was kind of a girly girl. In fact, as soon as she found out that 'Agatha' was Conan's cousin, she immediately latched on to the apparently timid girl.

The only disturbing part in all of this was how, during recess, Ayumi covertly dragged the small redhead into the girl's bathroom so she could grill her about Conan.

"It's a Japanese Shiba dog." Tsuburaya Mitsuhiko reminded Agatha of a young Gosunkugi in appearance, though they were nothing alike in personality. The young black haired boy was a genius for his age, knowing lots of little trivia facts that Agatha never even knew about. The guy seemed to be a chicken at first glance, but even Agatha could tell that he had a spine of steel.

The one thing that worried the former Saotome scion was how the boy seemed to fixate on her, Ai, and Ayumi all at once. He was nowhere near as bad as Kuno, but it was worrying . . . mind you, it was kinda funny how Ayumi seemed to miss the cues, and the guy was likeable . . .

Agatha would later admit that, if she really was a girl, inside and out, she'd find the guy cute . . . in a somewhat geeky way, but cute all the same . . .

"What's his name?" Mitsuhiko's feelings for the girls were shared by the final member of the team, Kojima Genta. Whereas Ayumi was the charismatic member of the team, and Mitsuhiko was the 'brains', Genta was the muscle, as much as a grade school kid could be. He was brash and quick to jump in without looking, but he had the loyalty of a hound. In fact, he reminded Agatha of her older, male persona.

Fortunately for Agatha, the chubby youth had a greater fixation on food, one that Agatha could completely understand. After that, Ayumi took most of his focus. He also had an interest in sports and, surprisingly enough to the other youths, Martial Arts, going so far as to giving Agatha an enthusiastic hug when she promised to tutor him in some beginning forms, much to her irritation and chagrin.

"We named him Arthur, after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who created Sherlock Holmes," replied Kano Teruya, the son of Agase's friend. The man was a bit of a mystery fanatic, but all in all, he seemed like an OK guy.

"If Conan and Arthur were to team up, then they'd be the best detective in the world!" Ayumi chimed in, playing with the dog's paws. Conan was quick to discount it, attempting to ignore Agatha's giggle while he was at it. Fortunately, this was enough to distract both Mitsuhiko and Genta from being too jealous of the young detective.

Agatha then perked up, turning towards where Dr Agase was walking in, Ai trailing nervously behind him. As she turned towards the two of them, Arthur started to freak out, growling and barking at her blonde friend. When the dog lunged, she leapt on top of him, holding the dog in place and delivering a light slap on the dog's head, "Bad dog!" The dog stopped struggling, though he did continue to growl at Ai, who was hiding behind Agase's leg.

"That's odd," Teruya muttered, moving towards them, "he's never acted like this before . . . "

"By any chance, did you guys pet any big dogs on your way here?" Conan asked pointedly.

"Well," Agase replied, "a friend of mine with a large dog did stop by the house earlier. How did you know?"

Conan smirked, but before he could show off his deductions, Agatha chipped in, "H-he probably noticed all the d-dog hair on your pants, Agase-sensei. Dogs and w-wolves can tell a lot by smell alone, and h-he probably felt threatened by you."

"Oh, that's why!" Ayumi gasped excitedly, delighted that her new friend also had cool detective skills.

"I guess his personality is kind of like Conan's," Mitsuhiko chuckled, amused by the thought of it.

Conan ignored this jibe, informing Teruya to not be too hard on the dog, "After all, he was just acting on instinct."

"One that is not like the others," Ai mused, a fake smile on her lips, "Maybe it wasn't just instinct . . . "

Ayumi and the boys stared worriedly at the blonde, until Agatha walked up to her, glared at her, and then pinched her side, making the girl jump. "Don't say stuff like that, Haibara-chan! After all, what would some dumb dog know anyways!"

Ai rubbed her side and mock-glared at her friend; ever since the incident on the bus, Agatha had been forced to up her act, moving from shy girl to occasionally bossy, shy girl. She still stuttered and hid behind Conan from time to time, but she made a point to knock some sense into her female friend's head every now and then.

Agatha met her glare, and the blonde couldn't help but shiver. Agatha might have to play at being weak and shy, but she sometimes forgot that there was the mind of a martial artist behind those eyes. The core of determination there was intense.

She broke away, only now realizing that a pudgy, middle aged man with a mustache had walked up and was engaging Teruya and Agase in a conversation.

She tried to ignore Conan's smirk and the other kids' confused looks, trying to pass off her past comment as a joke.

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Agatha marveled at the room, "So many toys!"

Fortunately, only Ai and Conan heard her comment, as the other three kids were off checking out clocks, models, and dolls from around the room. It was enough to even make Ai crack a smile . . . until she thought about why Agatha would be marveling about a couple of old toys.

Still, it was hard to stay depressed while watching the small redhead flit around the room, marveling at some of the odd antiques, picking up and playing with some of the more masculine toys, and trying to ignore Ayumi's attempts to get her to play with the dolls.

"Wow!"

Ai blinked, realizing that she had lost track of what was around her for a few minutes. Glancing over, she noticed a small white dog with black fur on her ears walking in. Conan, Mitsuhiko and Ayumi had already made their way over to play with Doyle (the dog's name), and she couldn't help but overhear Mitsuhiko say that she was a Papillion (or something like that; she couldn't be bothered by the details at this point).

"They sure are mystery fanatics," Agatha muttered, walking up behind her. The blonde snorted, but noticed that her friend seemed to be staring at the scene with a sort of longing in her expression.

"Let me guess, you wanted a dog when you were younger?" Ai asked the redhead.

The boy-turned-young girl shrugged uncomfortably, "Yeah, ever since I was about eight and found a stray at the side of the road. I tried to keep it for a few days, but then Pops started looking at it like it was dinner. Overheard the baka mention something about cooking it one night when he thought I was asleep. Barely managed to chase it away in time, and even then, Pops ended up giving me Hell for it for the next two weeks."

Agatha winced at the blonde's horrified look, "Don't worry, I got him back for it. Two months later we ended up camping out in a poor part of the country, not sure where. There were plenty of strays around, but the moment I caught him grilling one of them, I refused to even eat the rice. He thought it was all fine and good then, but after I started giving the locals sob stories about my cruel father who hogged all the food, they called child services and the cops. He barely got out of there with me, and it took him weeks to find an area where he wasn't known as a child abusing glutton. Never tried to eat dog again in my presence after that."

Agatha had a sad smile on her face, and Ai knew that if Ayumi ever heard that story, they'd never get her to stop crying. It was all she could do to keep from wrapping the poor redhead in a hug herself, but she didn't want to attract attention to them; they were lucky they weren't overheard as it was.

" . . . just like the greedy queen who got her head chopped off herself."

Both girls looked up to see an older woman leaning against the door frame. Ai cursed herself for losing her situational awareness for a few moments, but missed the woman's name when Agatha asked who she was talking about.

"Oh sorry, the door was open so I just let myself in. Your mother told me I could have anything in the house that I wanted." She wandered into another room, saying as she walked away, "If you don't mind, I'll just take what I want."

"She's a dog lover too?" Agase asked, just as Agatha asked again who the odd woman was talking about.

"I'll give you the overview later, it's a long story," she muttered to the redhead, who nodded confusedly.

". . . do I really want to know?"

"It's a pretty interesting story, but you need a lot of backstory," Ai claimed with a smirk, "To give it a quick summary, France was not a nice place a couple hundred years ago, and a lot of important people, including royalty, had their heads chopped off."

Agatha blinked, blinked again, looked around to ensure that nobody was close enough to hear them, and then asked, "That actually sounds kind of interesting. Why can't all history be like that?"

Conan, the Shounen Tantei, and the three adults in the room couldn't help but look confused when Ai busted out in a fit of laughter. This, however, snapped Tsunashima Yoshio into action, causing him to hand the small dog, Doyle to Ai and rush off to check on his clock. Ai couldn't help but stare at the dog, surprised.

"Hey Ai, Agatha, why don't you pick out something?" Ai chimed in excitedly, enjoying the atmosphere.

The redhead jumped, stunned and somewhat embarrassed, as Ai looked up in confusion.

Mitsuhiko and Genta chimed in, "Yeah, it isn't every day that we get a chance like this!"

"There's a lot of cool stuff here!"

"Well then," Ai seemed to think for a few seconds, "I guess I'll take this dog . . ."

Agase and Conan gave her a confused look, but Agatha just sighed and poked her friend, "You're going to say something dark, aren't you."

Ai just blinked in return, "And when I do, you're going to pinch me again, aren't you?"

For the first time in several weeks, Saotome Ranma's infamous smirk made its appearance, "What do you think?"

" . . . I think you've been imitating your Onee-chan too much. It's starting to stick." Agatha's only response to this was to stick her tongue out at the blonde. The rest of the room just giggled.

Suddenly, Arthur ran into the room, barking his head off. When his owner tried to scold him, the dog just started pulling on his pants leg, dragging the man down the hall to see a tall, black haired woman with a Shetrand Shepard standing in the hall.

The woman, Hasuki Shino, was quite nice, and the name of her dog, Christie, showed her to be a mystery fan. Ayumi couldn't help but remark about how Doyle and Christie seemed to be such good friends.

"Much like their owners, ne Conan-kun?" Agatha muttered, slightly amused.

"Huh? What makes you say that, Agatha-chan?" the small brunette asked.

Conan and Ai mentally cursed, not realizing that the other three were listening in, but Agatha just giggled a bit, "J-just an observation Ayumi-chan. Just an observation."

Suddenly, a clock bell rang and Doyle the dog perked up, leapt from Ai's grasp, and went running down the hall. Teruya explained how the little dog took his meals at noon, and then lead the way to his mother's shrine. However, the dog wasn't there . . .

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Ai stared at the scene in front of her in horror. While looking for Doyle, the Shonen Tantei and the adults had heard Arthur the dog barking outside. What they discovered out there seemed horrific.

An old oven that had originally come with the property, and had been left unlit for many years, was hot and open. Arthur was growling at the door. Conan had leapt to the fore and grabbed a set of tongs to go digging through it, only to find the charred remains of Doyle's collar.

As Teruya let loose a heartbroken cry, Ai stood in the back in shock. Dark thoughts ran through her head as her arms shook. She tried her hardest to hold back the tears in her eyes as the oven and the apparent gravesite seemed to grow more distant in her vision . . .

Wait . . .

Ai blinked and looked behind her, where Agatha was gently leading her back into the house. As she opened her mouth, the redhead quietly shushed her, and continued to drag her onwards into a room with two Hifi speakers and a sound system. Slipping behind one of them, Ai couldn't help but gasp when she saw Doyle lying inside it, peacefully sleeping.

As the blonde fell to her knees in relief, Agatha sat down, picked up the sleeping Papillion, and handed it to AI. I thought something was off with the bell that rang, and thought I'd investigate that. I found him just before Arthur started barking at the furnace. Somebody left him food laced with a sleeping agent; I can tell that much from having dealt with Kodachi in the past."

As Ai started gently petting the small dog, she glanced up at her friend, "And you didn't tell the others because . . . "

Agatha grimaced, "Dogs can't drug themselves like this, so there must be a mystery behind it. If I just brought Doyle out of hiding, Conan might miss the evidence that could point to the asshole who did this."

The pint sized scientist nodded thoughtfully as the two sat there with the dog in silence. Then Ai glanced at her friend, "Agatha-chan?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

The redhead just shrugged, "Don't mention it. You and Conan are my best friends; makes me wonder what it might have been like to have spent my first childhood with you two."

Ai blinked, "First childhood? Didn't know you even had one!"

"Ha ha, very funny." Agatha deadpanned.

The two girls giggled for a bit, and then fell silent, taking turns petting the dog that lay on the blonde's lap. They continued to be silent as people went through the house, looking for Doyle. When Conan and Ayumi finally found them, they couldn't help but giggle at the look on the child detective's face as he gaped at them, stunned that he had been beaten to the key evidence.

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Later that afternoon, Dr Agase walked the kids (and the apparent kids) home. Ai was busy trying to calm Ayumi down, as she was rather annoyed that the two girls didn't take her to Doyle (Agatha had a bit of forgiveness for being new and for being Conan's 'cousin'.

As they walked near the back, Conan slid next to Agatha, "Thanks, I owe you one for keeping Ai from being . . . well . . . "

"Depressed? Macabre? Dark?" Agatha supplied glibly. At Conan's grimace, she sighed. "As I told Ai, you guys are my best friends. I might not be able to add much to this team, but at the very least, I can keep you two from tearing yourselves apart."

Conan grinned weakly, "So have you forgiven me yet?" When Agatha continued to stare at him, he shifted uncomfortably, "For that bus ride thing?"

Agatha rolled her eyes, "The bus thing wasn't that big of a deal. It was you ignoring Ai-chan's instincts that got me. For a detective, you can really be an idiot!"

Conan winced, "But there wasn't anyone of note on board! I couldn't . . . "

"I knew I guy that could disguise himself as any inanimate object in the room. I couldn't even sense his presence until he popped up as the trashcan or desk or mailbox or something like that. Who's to say the bastard wasn't disguising himself on that bus?"

"Then how could Ai know they were on the bus?"

Agatha grew pensive, "Ai's really good at sensing presences and intent for a non-martial artist. Since she spent most of her time around those creeps, she can instinctively recognize their presence in the room. For all we know, it could have been the little old lady next to you, or the grown man in the back; she just knew he was on board."

The shrunken detective grimaced, "I didn't think of that. I learned a little about disguises and costuming from my mother, but I wasn't as into it as I was with learning how to be a detective from my father. By the time I picked it up, my mother was off working on her career."

Agatha nodded, thoughtfully, "Next time you see her, could you introduce me?" At Conan's odd look, Agatha grimaced and shook her child sized fist, "You and Ai are the brains in this operation; the only reason I found Doyle first was because I could tell the difference between a clock bell and a recording. I'm too weak to be the muscles, but I was tired of being Saotome Ranma even while I was Saotome Ranma. Maybe if I can pick up some disguise techniques, I might be able to start contributing more to our group."

Conan grinned and snickered, "You do know that you'll be stuck playing dress-up as long as she's around, right?"

Ai blushed, "I know, but . . . well, it might be . . . fun . . . " She then slugged him in the arm, "Just don't tell anyone; it'll ruin my reputation."

She then ran ahead to join the rest of the group, Conan laughing and grumbling behind her.

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NEXT UP: We meet up with Conan's/Shinichi's counterpart in Osaka, as well as the infamously insane Kuno Tatewaki. Enjoy!


End file.
